New European partners joined; a refreshed strategy will strengthen effort as the ‘Roadmap on Carcinogens’ is heading from Berlin 2020 to Brussels 2024.
The battle against occupational cancer continues!
Neither falling from heights, nor machine accidents are responsible for the highest numbers of work-related deaths… Cause no. 1 is cancer, because workers are exposed to carcinogenic substances. In Europe alone, each year over 100,000 people die because of just going to work, of just doing their job. This is unacceptable! These cases of cancer are preventable: we only need to avoid exposure to cancer-causing agents at work.
We are able to change things if we want to. In 2016, the Roadmap on Carcinogens (RoC1.0) was initiated as an action scheme to raise awareness in companies about carcinogens and to communicate tools to tackle exposure at the shop floor. Right now a refreshed action scheme is about to start for another leg through Europe, taking us from Berlin 2020 to Brussels 2024.
Raising awareness
Both European employers’ and workers’ organisations as well as the European Commission, EU-OSHA, ECHA and a handful of (new) member states joined the Roadmap and will have an active role in the years to come. Germany took over the coordinating role from the Netherlands and together we join efforts to raise aware-ness in the working community against the risks of exposure to carcinogenic substances at work.
Conference ‘STOP Cancer at Work’
Together we are in the final phase of defining a new strategy, which will be introduced at the German presidency conference ‘STOP Cancer at Work’ on 9 and 10 November 2020. This second lifespan of the Roadmap sets ambitious goals, keeping in mind the current pandemic and economic situation in member states and companies. In RoC2.0, the initial goals of raising awareness (1) and providing help (2) remain current whilst the Roadmap will also direct towards mobilising stakeholders (3) and targeting innovation (4). On the one hand, this will lead to more organisations being active, and on the other hand towards tailor-made solutions.
Within these four areas, special projects (‘challenges’) with various scopes and time-frames are being defined. These challenges are lead and executed by the Roadmap partners. The impact of the RoC2.0 will most likely increase with every successfully executed project. Most importantly, partners may adjust these challenges during the lifespan of RoC2.0 until 2024, giving us the flexibility to react to current needs and unforeseeable circumstances.
Join us!
If you want to be part of our joint initiative and contribute to preventing work-related cancer, become a friend of the Roadmap (over 1000 friends already joined us)! Contact us, if you want to get involved in a challenge, for instance by providing data or by sharing knowledge.
You are the stakeholder we want to mobilise!
