Abstract

This website contains information and many references on occupational asthma. It also has information on a computer program (OASYS) to help diagnosis asthma from serial peak flow records. It is very easily found if you Google occupational asthma and appears high up on the resulting list. The web page loads on to the screen quickly and directly to the home page with no annoying front pages or moving parts which reduce load speed.

The website has a very pleasing design with an industrial scene at the top and a light blue background colour scheme that is easy on the eye, and evocative of health, care, air, blue sky thinking etc. All were very apt with a clear and easily readable font. The structure is well laid out into nine main tables for Workers, Employers, Medics, Specialists, References, British Occupational Health Research Foundation (BHORF), OASYS, Shield and Forums. The order of the tabs has been organised from a researcher’s view of the world though.

The website is very easy to use and simple to navigate around. No site map is required. The links all work well, so that behind the simple uncluttered structure, there is a massive amount of information accessed by the links. It is written in plain English, clear, to the point, with no gobbledegook. The pictures help to clarify the information and also act as hyperlinks, rather than just to look good on the screen.

Just looking around the pages to write this article, I relearned a lot of information that I had forgotten from AFOM days and learned new information. There is straightforward information for workers on how to find out if they have occupational asthma. There are very useful downloads such as a date entry sheet for recording peak flow; how to carry out a detailed respiratory survey and an occupational asthma clinic proforma.

The search facility for references is superb with a quirky photo-hyperlink to the author information page. The access to all the BOHRF information on occupational asthma and the Shield Surveillance scheme means that all the occupational asthma information is available at one very easily accessible point. There is also a Forum for discussion and seems to be in frequent use, particular on questions about published papers.

The list of possible jobs was perhaps too simplistic though, and there did not appear to be information on RIDDOR which one might expect to find on the employer page.

In summary, this is an excellent site on all aspects of occupational asthma. I would recommend a visit and saving it to your favourites for future reference.

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