About National Institute for Occupational Health and Poison Control

National Institute for Occupational Health and Poison Control

The National Institute for Occupational Health and Poison Control, abbreviated NIOHP, was established in 1954 as the first research institute for the study and prevention of occupational diseases and occupational health founded by the Chinese government. Now part of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and based in Beijing, it is China's national centre for occupational health and occupational disease control and prevention: the institution that researches pneumoconiosis and chemical poisoning, sets diagnostic standards for occupational diseases, surveils workers' health, and manages the national chemical poisoning treatment bases that respond when workplaces poison people.

Foundation in 1954 as the Institute of Labor Hygiene

China CDC's official profile gives the institute a clear founding distinction: established in 1954, it was the first research institute for occupational disease and occupational health research created by the Chinese government. A China CDC Weekly profile of its long-serving chief director Tao Li adds the original name and home: the institute was formerly the Institute of Labor Hygiene, established in 1954, of the Central Institute of Health — now the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences — and the original institute was the first academic institution engaged in research on occupational health and occupational diseases in China. In 1983 the institute was affiliated to the Chinese Center for Preventive Medicine, which was renamed the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in 1985 and became the predecessor of China CDC; in 2002, when China CDC was established, the institute joined it under its present name.

The founding date matters. China industrialised at extraordinary speed after 1949, and dust, chemical and physical hazards industrialised with it. A state institute for labour hygiene created in 1954 — before most of the industrial workforce existed — gave China a scientific centre for occupational disease from the beginning of its industrial era, and the institute's history since is inseparable from the occupational health consequences of Chinese industrial growth.

National centre, WHO collaborating centre and degree-granting institute

The institute's official profile accumulates designations that define its rank. It is a well-known national centre for occupational health and occupational disease control and prevention and a centre for toxicity testing of chemicals affiliated with the health ministry; it is a national base for the treatment and cure of chemical poisoning; and it is a WHO collaborating centre for occupational health. It is authorised to confer master's and doctoral degrees in occupational and environmental health and in toxicology, and is authorised as a post-doctoral research station. In 1998 it was qualified as a Class A agency for chemical toxicity identification and occupational disease hazard assessment by the State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.

It is also a committee hub: some of China's most important national academic committees in occupational health and toxicity are affiliated to the institute, including the National Occupational Health Standard Committee; the Labor Health and Occupational Disease Branch and Occupational Diseases Committee of the China Preventive Medicine Association; the Industrial Toxicology Specialty Section of the Chinese Society of Toxicology; the Occupational Health Special Committee of the China Occupational Safety and Health Association; the Enterprises Committee of the China Association of Health Promotion and Education; and the Occupational Health Professional Committee of the China Health Inspection Association. Housing the committees that write a field's standards and organise its profession is a form of institutional authority that outlasts any single project.

Research fields: from pneumoconiosis to industrial toxicology

The institute records great achievements in the prevention and treatment of pneumoconiosis, control of chemical poison, pesticide poisoning prevention, industrial toxicology, surveillance of workers' health, and diagnostic standards for occupational diseases and occupational health. Pneumoconiosis — the irreversible lung disease caused by inhaled dust — is the emblematic Chinese occupational disease, and the institute's Department of Occupational Respiratory Diseases leads its study: a 2023 analysis by the department's Huanqiang Wang and colleagues, published in the Chinese Medical Journal Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, dissected coal workers' pneumoconiosis data from 1949 to 2021, identifying the turning points of 1963, 1986, 2006 and 2009 in incidence patterns and relating them to diagnostic criteria, labour management, coal industry policy and the growth of examination and diagnostic institutions. As Wang notes, the Chinese government and society attach great importance to pneumoconiosis prevention and have worked on dust control since the 1950s — the decade of the institute's founding — while the problem remains serious.

Industrial toxicology and chemical poisoning form the second pillar: identifying the toxicity of industrial chemicals, preventing pesticide poisoning among agricultural workers, and building the scientific basis for exposure limits and protective standards. The third pillar, workers' health surveillance, generates the data on which the other two depend.

The occupational disease reporting system

The institute's scientists have documented the system through which China counts its occupational diseases. NIOHP authors record that the first national list of occupational diseases was published in 1957, and that since 2006 a network-based direct reporting system has operated as a subsystem of the national disease control information system managed by China CDC. Under the Occupational Disease Classification and Catalogue revised in 2013, 121 diseases in nine categories are reported — including occupational pneumoconiosis and other respiratory diseases, occupational dermatoses, eye, ear, nose, throat and oral diseases, sixty occupational chemical poisonings, diseases from physical factors, occupational infectious diseases and occupational tumours — with occupational radioactive diseases reported separately. Reporting covers diagnosed diseases, diagnostic and health examination information, suspected cases and pesticide poisoning, from diagnostic agencies, examination agencies and other medical institutions; monthly, quarterly and annual reports are prepared, and a national report of occupational diseases is published annually by the National Health Commission. The institute that helped build this system also uses it: its nationwide occupational health risk assessment project of 2018–2023, for example, produced the first comprehensive epidemiology of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in key industries, using an ergonomic evaluation system developed by its own Department of Occupational Protection and Ergonomics, and found a prevalence of lower extremity musculoskeletal disorders of 17.7 percent among key occupational groups.

Ergonomics and the newer occupational diseases

The institute's agenda has widened with China's economy from the classic hazards of mines and chemical plants to the ergonomic disorders of manufacturing and service work. Its Department of Occupational Protection and Ergonomics developed the Ergonomic Evaluation and Analysis System used in the institute's nationwide risk assessment project of 2018–2023, which investigated work-related musculoskeletal disorders among occupational groups in key industries — building the epidemiological database that earlier research had lacked, particularly for lower extremity disorders. The study found the highest prevalence in toy manufacturing, medical personnel, automobile manufacturing, non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling, and coal mining and washing: a list that itself tells the story of Chinese work changing, with repetitive-strain injury in light manufacturing and healthcare now standing alongside the dust diseases of heavy industry in the national data. That a dedicated ergonomics department exists within the institute, and that its assessment system is the instrument of a six-year national project, marks the institutionalisation of this newer field alongside the pneumoconiosis and toxicology work of the institute's first decades.

Chemical poisoning treatment bases and emergency response

Poison control gives the institute an operational, clinical dimension unusual among research institutes. It is designated a national base for the treatment and cure of chemical poisoning, and its functions include managing the national-level chemical poisoning treatment bases and teams and providing technical support for the emergency treatment of major occupational health hazards and outbreaks of poisoning. The system exists for the worst days of industrial life: a leak, an explosion, a contaminated product, when dozens of casualties may need specialist toxicological care simultaneously and local hospitals need expert support on antidotes, decontamination and prognosis. The institute's toxicology — the same science that identifies chemical toxicity in the laboratory and qualifies it as a Class A toxicity identification agency — is what those bases and teams deploy at the bedside and the incident site. Prevention, standards and surveillance are the institute's everyday work; the poisoning bases are its insurance, maintained so that expertise in the rarest and most dangerous events is never more than a call away.

Functions: standards, risk assessment and poisoning response

China CDC's statement of the institute's functions shows how research becomes national practice. The NIOHP carries out occupational health and poisoning control work and provides technical support for laws, regulations, policies, plans, standards, supervision and inspection on occupational disease prevention and poisoning control; it undertakes employers' occupational-disease hazard project declarations, monitors and reports occupational hazard factors, occupational diseases and acute poisoning, conducts risk assessment, studies and formulates intervention strategies, and carries out workplace health education and promotion; it manages the national-level chemical poisoning treatment bases and teams and provides technical support for emergency treatment of major occupational health hazards and poisoning outbreaks; it performs chemical toxicity identification and quality control of occupational health and poisoning testing laboratories; it conducts scientific research, provides technical guidance to China's occupational disease prevention and control organisations, delivers postgraduate and continuing education and training, and conducts international exchanges and cooperation.

The poisoning function is the most dramatic: when a chemical incident poisons workers or the public, the national treatment bases and expert teams the institute manages are the system's specialist response, built on its toxicology. Under chief director Tao Li from 2002, the institute's work included establishing an occupational disease monitoring system, a chemical poisoning emergency response system and nationwide basic occupational health service capacity, and addressing dozens of major occupational disease events and poisoning incidents, including nationally known pneumoconiosis cases in Fujian, Guizhou and Anhui; Li's tenure contributed to the drafting and revision of the Law on Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases, the national occupational disease prevention plans for 2009–2015 and 2016–2020, and the measures governing occupational health examination and occupational disease diagnosis.

Significance

Occupational disease is the shadow of industrialisation, and China has the world's largest industrial workforce. The National Institute for Occupational Health and Poison Control has stood at the centre of the country's response since 1954: first institute of its kind, WHO collaborating centre, keeper of the diagnostic standards and the reporting system, researcher of pneumoconiosis across seven decades of data, and manager of the national bases that treat chemical poisoning when prevention fails. Its work defines how China knows what work is doing to workers' health — and what the state does about it.