Healthy work in a healthy environment
The Swiss Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (SCOEH) conducts research on factors that contribute to a healthy workplace and environment, and shares its insights by consulting for governments and companies, and by educating workers, managers and university students. We see health as a broad concept that is more than just the absence of disease; instead, it is a state of physical, mental and social well-being, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). (http://www.who.int/about/mission/).
Team
Dr. Michael Riediker is the founder and director of the SCOEH. He is an internationally experienced expert on occupational and environmental health issues resulting from exposure to particles in air and water, allergens, gases and related agents and circumstances. In 2000, he obtained his Doctor of Sciences at Switzerland’s renowned Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich (www.ethz.ch), on the subject of allergens and air pollution in the city of Zurich. In the same year, he completed his Master’s of Advanced Studies in Work and Health, also at ETH Zurich. Since then, Michael has gained experience in managing exposure and health projects in North Carolina, USA (2000–2003), ETH Zurich (2003) and at the University of Lausanne (2004–2015). From 2013 to 2018, he helped build IOM Singapore Pte Ltd, where he became Director of Research (2017–2018). Michael founded SCOEH on 9 February 2018. He is a certified occupational hygienist in Switzerland (www.sgah.ch), a Graduate Member of the international chapter of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (www.iosh.co.uk) and a Registered Industrial Hygienist in Singapore (www.oehs.org.sg). He was an adjuct assistant professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (www.ntu.edu.sg), Singapore, from 2016 to 2021.
Dr Dai-Hua “Maggie“ Tsai is responsible for public health issues. She has many years of experience in the epidemiological investigation of how particulate matter affects circulatory factors such as blood pressure, sodium excretion and inflammation. After an MSc in chemical engineering, Maggie received her PhD in Public Health from the National Taiwan University (www.ntu.edu.tw) in 2008. Maggie came to Switzerland in 2009 and worked at the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (www.iumsp.ch) until 2016. She dedicated this time to the study of the effects of air pollutants on the health of the populations of Lausanne, Geneva and other Swiss cities and published the findings in high-impact scientific journals. In addition to her role at SCOEH, Dr. Tsai worked from 2018 to 2020 also at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Zürich, Switzerland (www.kjpd.uzh.ch). Her main task was to do epidemiological analyses for the Cohort Study on Substance Use Risk Factors (C-SURF). She is also currently working as an epidemiologist at the University Hospital Zurich (www.usz.ch).
Precepts
- SCOEH offers highly competent, impartial, transparent research and consultancy services carried out using scientifically-based means and methods.
- SCOEH is committed to high standards. In particular, we adhere to the rules of scientific integrity set out by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, our work involving human research is carried out according to the Declaration of Helsinki’s rules, and we take into account existing national and international norms and standards wherever possible.
- SCOEH puts ethics before business. We do not accept orders or funds from ethically questionable companies or organizations. We follow the principles of the World Health Organization (WHO), which, for example, defines the arms and tobacco industries as incompatible with its activities.
