Health needs of an industrial population.

PIP: To assess the health needs of an industrial population, the type of industry, its distribution, its number of employees, special work hazards, environment, and other problems need to be considered. Additionally, attention must be given to the age, sex, ethnic distribution, and rural or urban background of the population groups involved. Each of the groups has its own special needs in the health field. The worker along with the physician and management needs to participate in determining what his/her health needs are. Conclusions and recommendations are offered as follows: 1) known and accepted procedures must be refined, expanded, and critically evaluated so that a worker's health is protected within his/her environment and his/her environment is controlled; 2) industries should pool their health data in order to detect early health effects of industrial exposure and to provide a basis for epidemiological studies; 3) industrial medical departments should become involved in community medicine; 4) emotional health needs will play a large role and will include the provision of supportive short-term therapy, birth control counseling, day care services, and preretirement counseling along with other specific needs of various groups; 5) rehabilitation efforts must be expanded; 6) health education efforts are needed to slow the progress of degenerative diseases; 7) additional research on susceptibility to industrial substances of individuals with genetic defects needs to be conducted, and the means of selecting out such individuals before employment should be developed; and 8) the feasibility of developing a health information center for small industrial medical clinics should be explored.^ieng