UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 04 DECEMBER 2014
A Birmingham City University academic who specialises in workplace and occupational health, has had his contribution to one of the major international textbooks of occupational medicine recognised by the British Medical Association.
Professor Craig Jackson’s chapters on Psychosocial Hazards and Management of Hazards in the workplace were part of the Oxford Handbook of Occupational Health (2 edition) which won first place in the Primary Care category at the BMA Book Awards ceremony in London in September, which takes place annually to recognise outstanding contributions to the medical literature.
Professor Jackson said: "It was a really important marker that a book on Occupational Health should be included in one of the bigger awards categories at the BMA book awards, that of Primary Care, which hopefully shows the recognition of the importance of this branch of medicine - of which a substantial amount is often practiced by non-specialists - emerging from the shadows of the more 'glamorous' areas of healthcare."
He paid tribute to the books editors and fellow contributors in for including the more recently understood psychological aspects of workplace health and talking therapies, and placing them on a par with more traditional aspects of industrial medicine and practice.
"We understand that the workplace should not be a source of ill-heath or distress for workers, yet each year in the UK alone, hundreds of thousands of people are made ill by the work they do, or have their health conditions worsened by their jobs, and this is morally wrong. If this book can help all stakeholders, from general practitioners and specialists, through to managers, organisations and small businesses improve the health of workers, then the award is truly deserved."