April 25 to May 1 is the 23rd Promotion Week of the Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law in the country. The National Health Commission held a press conference on April 28 with the theme of caring for the occupational health of workers.

Li Jun, deputy director of the Occupational Health Department of the National Health Commission, introduced that monitoring of occupational diseases and hazard factors mainly involves regular inspections, testing and evaluation of occupational diseases hazard factors in the workplace and the occupational health status of workers. The purpose is to grasp the occurrence, change trends and laws of occupational diseases, analyze and judge the work situation and existing risks, and provide basis and support for formulating occupational disease prevention and control strategies and improving the supervision work mechanism.

After efforts, the monitoring work has achieved "three full coverages". Specifically, it is to fully cover industries with serious occupational disease hazards, key occupational disease monitoring counties and districts, and all occupational disease types.

In 2024, on-site testing was conducted on-site for more than 500,000 key positions in nearly 70,000 employers; pneumoconiosis was screened for 5 million patients who visited respiratory diseases. In addition, local organizations conducted occupational health examinations on more than 24 million workers. Judging from the monitoring results, the environment and conditions of the workplace have gradually improved, and the employer's awareness of implementing the main responsibility for occupational disease prevention and control has gradually increased, reflecting the relevant indicators of standardized management of occupational disease prevention and control, such as the declaration of hazard factors, daily monitoring and other indicators, etc., continue to improve. However, the problem of noise exceeding the standard is still relatively prominent, especially in industries such as mining and machinery manufacturing, the risks are high, and the prevention and control tasks of traditional occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis and deafness are still arduous, and the foundation for occupational health protection of small and micro enterprises needs to be strengthened urgently.

For the problems found, relevant departments will supervise and guide employers to deal with them in a classified manner in accordance with the law and regulations. For positions where occupational disease hazards exceed the standard, employers should strengthen governance and improve the working environment and conditions of workers; for those found occupational taboo certificates, employers should be urged to implement relevant provisions of the Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law, and workers shall not be allowed to engage in the work they are taboo; for those found suspected occupational diseases, employers should be urged to organize and arrange diagnosis in a timely manner.

(CCTV reporter Yang Yang and Shi Yingchun)