Occupational and Insurance Medicine

Presentation of unit

Our mission is to promote and maintain the health of working people through population-based research with the aim to develop appropriate preventive strategies. The Occupational and Insurance Medicine Unit conducts mainly research in the field of occupational medicine. We investigate the impact of work on physical and mental health by unravelling the underlying mechanisms and also the reverse how health can affect work (dis)ability

Topics

  • Psychosocial risks, (prevention of) burnout
  • Return to work (RTW), work (dis)ability
    • Transgender people
    • Low back pain (LBP)
  • Electromagnetic fields
  • Educational research : e-learning, Massive Open On-line Course (MOOC)

Main activities

Education

The staff of the unit is involved as coordinator, lecturer, co-lecturer or collaborator in the bachelor and master of Medicine and in the following subsequent master's programmes of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (subsequent programmes are all organised in collaboration with other universities in Flanders):

  • Occupational medicine
  • Insurance Medicine and Medico-legal Expertise
  • Permanent Training Occupational Medicine

Research

  • Several projects are being carried out to allow formulating recommendations regarding the improvement of health and well-being in employees e;g. burnout projects, RTW , health effects and risk perception of electromagnetic fields
  • Development and evaluation of teaching activities  e.g. e-learning courses

Service

  • Ambulant and bedside consultations (diagnosis, recommendations on occupational-related diseases)
  • Presentations for expert audience (e.g. several presentations in scientific conferences and membership of committees,…) as well as for a non-expert audience (e.g. general public communications and publications )

List of most important projects

  • Burn-out projects
    • SPF Employment (projects 2010 and 2018)
    • Fedris 
  • Return to work of transgender and gender diverse people (PhD)
    • Evaluation of a secondary prevention programme for LPB (PhD)
  • BBEMG project
  • ESPrIT project
  • MOOC - Epidemiology Applied to Occupational Health and Safety
  • Emutom Online Module - European Module for Undergraduate Teaching of Occupational Medicine  

More information about the projects

Collaborators

  • Prof dr Lutgart Braeckman (scientific staff – full professor)
  • Dr. Joy Van de Cauter (scientific staff - assistant - PhD)
  • Dr. Mathieu Verbrugghe (Voluntary academic staff)
  • Lisa Bernaers (scientific staf)

  • Dr. Els De Waegeneer (scientific staff-postdoc)

Most important national and international partnerships (preferably max. 50 words)

  • FOD WASO, FEDRIS, RIZIV
  • European Association of Schools of Occupational medicine (EASOM)

External website

www.emutom.eu

The MOOC is available via https://users.ugent.be/~lbraeckm/

Contact data

Prof dr Lutgart BraeckmanGhent University 
Corneel Heymanslaan 10 (entrance 42), 4K3
B-9000 Ghent
Phone 0032 (0)9 332 36 91
Fax 0032 (0)9 332 49 94