Author Description

This document describes the social origins of the occupational health system, with an account of its structure followed by a cursory history of events from the adoption of the Occupational Health and Safety Act to the present time. It examines in detail three distinct but interacting processes: first, the decentralization of front line occupational health services to the Local Community Service Centre; second, the rapprochement of the community Health Department and the Quebec Hospital Association; and third, the polarization of the network along "ideological" lines.