Established in 1987, the Association of Occupational and Environmental clinics, a non-profit organization, is committed to improving the practice of occupational and environmental health through information sharing and collaborative research.
AOEC strives:
• To aid in identifying, reporting, and preventing occupational and environmental health hazards and their effects.
• To encourage the provision of high quality clinical services for people with work or environmentally related health problems.
• To provide a means for occupational/environmental health clinics to share information that will better enable them to diagnose and treat occupational/environmental diseases.
• To increase communication among clinics concerning issues related to patient care.
• To facilitate liaison between clinics and agencies responsible for workplace/environmental monitoring. To provide a source of data for research projects related to occupational/environmental health.
Database of Occupational and Environmental Cases
The AOEC has been developing a computer record of standardized format patient profiles. These are episodes of disease induced by environmental or occupational circumstances, and which have been reported in a without the identity of the patient or employer by the AOEC member clinics. This resource allows identification of clinical participants in research trials, helps to identify patients for public education and even makes some measures of public health impact available. To a lesser degree, it will also act as a repository for unusual and interesting but "negative" cases for clinicians to recognize as-yet unprecedented patterns of toxic, allergic or infectious illness related to environmental exposures. This is summarized periodically, but we have only a description of the report (broken link) available online for now. To make inquiries regarding information in the database (or to offer to refer a patient for inclusion), call the AOEC office, (202) 347-4976, or to the staff at the AOEC Washington office .
AOEC Exposure Codes
Developed developed with support from NIOSH at George Washington Univ for use in the AOEC Case Report Database, these codes are intended to cover the entire range of occupational and environmental exposures capable of causing illness.
In the Exposure Code Look-up tool, visitors can see the categorical structure of the codes, examples of codes from representative categories and download the entire compilation of the codes. Even more practical, the codes are included in a look-up database, available for download. Upon installation, this free program offers automated code selection based on synonyms and keywords.
Comprehensive Occupational & Environmental Exposure Database
The AOEC Exposure Code System was designed for use by AOEC members for use within the AOEC membership for a database project. This exposure coding system was developed by Katherine Hunting, PhD, MPH and Susan McDonald, MS, CIH of George Washington University's Occupational Medicine Group, for the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics with support through NIOSH Cooperative Agreements U60/CCU306169 and U50/CCU309667.
The exposure code system is a tool to help our clinicians. Because AOEC is a non-profit organization dedicated to public health, we allow anyone who wishes to use our system. It is not an official document of any governmental agency nor is it intended to be considered the final authority. It is an AOEC tool to help clinicians be more consistent in reporting.
Originally intended mainly for finding and matching cases within the case list above, this resource is the newest of its kind. It is intended to supplement coding for Occupational & Environmental Diseases by other than SOC job codes and SIC employer codes. Included are such aspects as anesthetic gases, toxigenic fungi and ergonomic hazards. Available at www.aoec.org are not only all the exposure codes, but a dynamic look-up engine which makes the use of the codes much easier. Options for downloading these resources, as well as examples of the tables which are included are on this page.