National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), Ahmedabad

National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) is a premier public health institute, established in 1966 and names as "National Institute of Occupational Health" (NIOH) in 1970. Since then NIOH has been working continuously through its main as well as two of its regional centres – Bangalore & Kolkata towards prevention & control of occupation related disorders among workers of the country. The primary responsibility of institute is to support the national policy makers for adopting an appropriate policy in the field of occupational health, based on felt needs of our country. Work is done through multi-disciplinary research, capacity building and technological development. Considering quantum of burden of occupational diseases (>90% of the workers work in the unorganized sectors), the priority has been given to dust related respiratory morbidities such as silicosis, anthracosis, byssinosis etc. Other diseases of concern are heavy metal poisoning, musculosketal disorders, pesticide poisoning etc. in various occupational groups. NIOH has started working on prevention & control of silicosis and other dust related lung diseases. Centre is involved in development of indigenous diagnostic kits for detection occupation related disorders such as silicosis. Centre is also involved in generating extensive awareness among workers/management staff and educates them about use of suitable technology such as mobile phone. NIOH is also involved in development of a transdermal patch that would detect sweat lead level among workers vulnerable to lead toxicity and would bring more technological developments through collaboration & cooperation with industries, academia & other bio-medical research organizations.