Abstract
This article deals with the problem of surveillance of occupational risks of workers.
Computer-assisted elaboration of the job history (JH) for each worker was achieved
by means of a job-exposure matrix (JEM) for each company. The final aim of the project
is to find correlations between the exposure data of JHs and the health data of corresponding
medical records.
As a first experiment, some JEMs were computed using rectangular arrays even though
it was realized that this simple structure was not really adequate. Later on, the
structure of the computerized JEM included the following questions: (1) what types
of information are involved; (2) how can the job-exposure correspondence be represented
in the computer; (3) what characteristics of a company should be used for the elaboration
of a JEM; (4) who is to construct each JEM, and how? This article shows the inadequacy
of some occupational names for evoking the appropriate risks, a drawback which can
be surmounted if the company organization is included in the JEM. Based on our analysis,
several specifications useful for JEM computerization have been suggested.
Key-words
Job-Exposure Matrix - Job History - Surveillance - Occupational Risk Factors - Microcomputer
