Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health

This qualification aims to provide graduates with the knowledge, skills and competence in the field of occupational health as a clinical and public health discipline, including the relevant legislation, occupational medicine, occupational hygiene toxicology and epidemiology. It is intended to ensure that practitioners in the discipline provide the highest standards of service delivery to workers in protecting their health, and to management in ensuring that their obligations are met.

Candidates for the Diploma in Occupational Health shall have a four year degree from a recognised University in health sciences or a relevant field, and be practicing / have practiced occupational health at a services, research or academic level for at least one year.

• Have a detailed knowledge of the legislative framework governing occupational health and safety in SA;
• Be able to measure and assess outcome data from secondary sources such as public health statistics or directly from measurement of subjective and objective individual responses to exposures;
• Be able to conduct qualitative or semi-qualitative assessments of potentially hazardous situations which may lead to detailed epidemiologic investigations assessing exposure-response relationships;
• Understand the concept of work-relatedness of disease an know the principal adverse health outcomes associated with the occupational exposures and how to diagnose and measure them in individuals and groups, using the concepts of environmental exposure, biological monitoring and biological effect monitoring as measures from exposure to disease;
• Design, implement and evaluate medical surveillance programmes in the workplace;
• Understand the needs of the different role-players and stakeholders in occupational health, their interactive dynamics and the professional ethics required in the practice of the discipline;
• Know the effects of the workplace on special groups of workers, such as women, health care workers, youth and those with medical ailments;
• Understand the basic principles of the organisation of occupational heath services, the different levels of prevention and cure provided, and how to evaluate these services for efficacy, cost efficiency, effectiveness and utilisation.

• Apply legislation in practical clinical or factory setting;
• Evaluate and analyse data form a variety of sources, and generate a set of practical recommendations based on these findings;
• Ability to conduct a risk assessment or rapid appraisal and to develop and implement research protocols, with clearly defined aims, objectives and appropriate methodology;
• Clinically assess individuals presenting to a professional practice, determine form the available evidence on the working environment and from clinical testing, the occupational nature of the presenting illness;
• Ability to develop written proposals on programmes, with plans on implementation and evaluation;
• Participate in activities which involve all stakeholders in an ethical and professional manner;
• Clinically evaluate individuals from special groups and be able to implement health programmes for such groups;
• Differentiate between the different service types and levels of care for appropriate referrals and can conduct an assessment of services when necessary or develop proposals for specific service delivery.

Integrated assessment appropriately incorporated to ensure that the purpose of the qualification is achieved

The University of Natal is currently reforming its assessment strategies to include the assessment of applied competence for each qualification. In the meantime, a combination of continuous assessment and traditional written examinations serve to assess the integration of all/most of the learning outcomes for each module in a qualification. Additionally, all students will be expected to complete a major research (epidemiological) project of a major clinical case study. These projects will be formally assessed and graded.