Educate our future work force to prevent exposure to carcinogens at work.

Safety and health at work is integral in vocational education and should empower future workers to be to recognise risks, apply safety measures and know their rights and duties at work.

Vocational education training (VET) includes learning and teaching of practical skills and provides theoretical knowledge. The vocational training for professions and occupations that are associated with potential exposure to hazardous substances, are focussed on training about the risks.
Examples among multiple others can be chemical technical assistants, painters, stone cutters, electricians, plumbers, welders, chimney sweepers, roofers or exterminators. Tasks performed in these occupations are facing potential exposure to carcinogenic substances.

The apprentices should learn how to read safety data sheets, pictograms and safety instructions. The training should start with substitutes like:

Coloured water instead of a biocide to train the use and illustrate the potential with residual colour of UV (exterminator)
Using salt or starch to train weighing, pipetting and filtrating before using a chemical compound (chemical assisstent)
Training with harmless vapors to adjust ventilation systems and make disturbances visible (stone cutter)
Restricting access for apprentices, repeated study of instructions prior to performance of every task and treating ‘almost accidents’ as if they were real are instruments to successively teach responsibility

Modern techniques allow to digitise training by:

Using VR goggles that simulate fumes for painting and welding and show the apprentice whether ventilation is correctly positioned (welders, painters)

Possible programs and learning materials

General risks and misconceptions on cancer.

Our website is dedicated to raise awareness for cancer risks at work. However, cancer does rarely have one single cause and other factors beyond work contribute to cancer.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), run by the World Health Organization (WHO), compiled 14 recommendations in the EU code against cancer that help you to reduce cancer risks in general.

Please note: This is a link to a verified source of information and will open in a new window.

What are carcinogens? An introduction.

Carcinogenic substances, or carcinogens, are cancer-causing agents. A well-known example is asbestos, a substance that is responsible for thousands of victims who suffer and die because of exposure to the asbestos particles in the past.

Many other carcinogenic substances are less known, but even natural products, such as dust from hardwood dust, may cause cancer. Make sure that you and others know what you work with!

Learn prevention strategies against carcinogens.

Employers must do everything in their power to prevent workers from coming into contact with carcinogens. The STOP principle describes the order of priority of protective measures.

The employer must observe this order of priority when determining and applying protective measures. The individual letter S-T-O-P stand for different types of protective measures:

Workers rights.

Employers have general duties in order to guarantee workers safety and some very specific duties to minimise exposure against cancer-causing agents? Workers also carry responsibilities and duties they need to perform.

Teach future workers that they have rights but also duties in the interest of their long-term safety!

Occupational hazards.

Are you training students for a specific occupation or sector?

Use our occupational risk database to prepare them for their future job. With concrete solutions and measures to safeguard them. Our occupational pages give an excellent insight on the carcinogenic risks involved.

Carcinogen factsheets.

Use our factsheets as learning material for specific substances. We collected all the important information about 40+ cancer causing substances and compiled them in easy-to-understand factsheets.