Work and Research Programme 2022-2025
Focus: The Infection Control/OSH Interface
As has become apparent in the course of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it is necessary to link up infection control, occupational safety and health (OSH), and economic activities so as to arrive at a functioning compromise between their different objectives, guaranteeing employees' safety and health while ensuring they are able to carry on working.
In this context, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA) has been called upon to make contributions in a range of different thematic fields - from the approval of disinfectants to questions about the safety of protective face coverings and research into aerosols. It has been involved in important developments, in particular the drafting of the SARS-CoV-2 Occupational Health and Safety Regulation (SARS-CoV-2-Arbeitsschutzregel), and has been able to respond to the demand for advice at very short notice by mobilising its specialist expertise. This experience is to be drawn on in future to further refine workplace OSH practice.
Under its Work and Research Programme 2022-2025, BAuA is therefore continuing to concentrate on many of the research topics that have been mentioned and bundling them together in a single focus programme, The Infection Control/OSH Interface.
The aim of this focus programme is to develop evidence-based recommendations on the protection of employees against infectious pathogens in the workplace beyond the scope of the Biological Agents Ordinance (Biostoffverordnung, BioStoffV).
The activities undertaken have the following aims:
- to identify risk hotspots and evaluate the effectiveness of infection control measures in working environments
- to promote the integration of infection control into workplace OSH activities
- to develop communication strategies for pandemics and network research activities
Research projects