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Occupational Medicine Advance Access published online on November 10, 2008
Occupational Medicine, doi:10.1093/occmed/kqn143
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Short Report

The activity on a Norwegian Occupational Health mailing list 1997–2006

Tone Morken1, Nils Bull2 and Bente E. Moen3

1 National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, Unifob Health, Bergen, Norway
2 Department of Ophthalmology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
3 Section for Occupational Medicine, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

Correspondence to: Tone Morken, National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, Unifob Health, Kalfarveien 31, N-5018 Bergen, Norway. Tel: +47 55 58 61 02; fax: +47 55 58 61 30; e-mail: tone.morken{at}isf.uib.no


   Abstract
Top
 Abstract
Introduction
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
 References
 
Background Professional mailing lists on the Internet have become a popular medium for communication in the medical field. There are few descriptions of the scientific activity on these mailing lists and none concerning occupational health have been found.

Aim To describe the activity of an occupational health electronic mailing list in Norway between 1997 and 2006.

Methods All messages sent to the Norwegian Occupational Health mailing list from 1997 to 2006 were studied, counting numbers, members and type of topic discussed. The job titles of contributors in 2006 were identified and all messages in a 3-month period in 2006 were analysed in more detail.

Results A total of 5269 messages were posted to the list. The number of members was 200 at the start of 1997, later rising to between 450 and 500, including doctors, physiotherapists, occupational hygienists and nurses. The main topics discussed were chemical hazards (19%), organization of occupational health services (17%), working methods in health and safety in general (10%) and ergonomics (8%). Most messages were questions and answers and they seldom led to discussion.

Conclusions The activity shows the need for electronic mailing communication in occupational health services. A broad range of topics was covered and most professional disciplines in occupational health services were represented. The quality of the content and usefulness of the discussions need further investigation.

Keywords      Internet; occupational health; occupational medicine


   Introduction
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
Methods
 Results
 Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
 References
 
Professional mailing lists on the Internet are a popular medium for communication in the medical field [1]. A mailing list is an electronic discussion forum among persons interested in the same topic and with a list of subscribers who receive a copy of everything sent to the mailbox. Some concern has been raised about the reliability of such forums [1,2]. The discussions are searchable and might create misinformation both to professionals [3] and lay people [4]. The usefulness of such mailing lists has been discussed [1–6], but no study has been found in the occupational health field.

The Norwegian Occupational Health mailing list started in 1997. It was administered by the University of Bergen, and the list was advertised to Norwegian occupational health services. It was not moderated, but the administrator regularly sent information about guidelines for the list.

The purpose of this study was to describe the activity of this Norwegian Occupational Health mailing list from 1997 to 2006, focusing on the number of messages, list members and topics discussed. This information might be useful both for future members and list organizers.


   Methods
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Methods
Results
 Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
 References
 
All messages sent to the mailing list from 1997 to 2006—and archived on a website—were included in the study. The messages were read and categorized by one occupational health professional. The categories were then discussed and adjusted by a group of three occupational health professionals. Information on the number of list members was obtained each year from the annual report of the Section for Occupational Medicine, University of Bergen. Quantitative data were then analysed descriptively using SPSS 14.0.

As job titles were not systematically recorded for the list members, job titles were only examined in 2006, by searching information about each member from occupational health organization lists.

The messages from August to October 2006 were further classified into questions, pure information messages or irrelevant messages. The questions were also classified by three response categories: answered satisfactorily, partly answered or not answered. Two occupational health professionals reviewed the postings: a physician categorized them and a physiotherapist verified them. Discrepancies were discussed until a consensus was obtained.


   Results
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Methods
 Results
Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
 References
 
Over the 10-year period, 5269 messages were posted to the mailing list (Table 1). The number of members increased from 200 in 1997 to 506 members in 2002; it remained stable in the following years (Table 2). The number of messages per year increased from 417 in 1997 to 746 in 2000 and then declined. The mean number of messages per list member per year varied from 2.1 in 1997 to 0.6 in 2004. The major topics were chemical hazards, organization of occupational health services, health, safety and environment and ergonomics (Table 1). Eight per cent of messages were considered to cover irrelevant issues, such as out of office reply.


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  		Table 1. Number of messages on the electronic mailing list by topics, 1997–2006 (n = 5269)

 

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  		Table 2. Number of members and number of messages (total and four major topics) on an electronic mailing list, 1997–2006

 
The contributors represented a variety of disciplines in 2006. The main occupational groups that contributed were occupational hygienists (sending 27% of the messages), doctors (sending 14%), physiotherapists (sending 13%) and nurses (sending 13%). The average number of messages per contributor in 2006 (n = 132) was 2.4 (range 1–20). Of the 467 participants on the list, 11 (2%) sent 83 (26%) of the 315 messages.

From August to October 2006, 46 different subjects were presented to the list, some of them several times. However, 28 of the subjects were posed as questions, 13 were pure information and 5 messages were not relevant. Of the questions, 18 (64%) were answered satisfactorily, 9 (32%) were partly answered and 5 (18%) were not answered.


   Discussion
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
Conflicts of interest
 References
 
The mailing list for occupational health in Norway has been a means of communication for many professionals in this scientific area. With ~2500 occupational professionals in Norway in the study period, the list members probably represented ~20%, which is quite high. The list is a multidisciplinary forum in which a broad variety of occupational health topics are discussed.

The list was based on an active minority of subscribers, and this is in accordance with other studies. A surgical mailing list showed 89% passive members [7], and a radiology list showed 50% [8]. A general practitioner list had a variation from 1 to 160 messages per member during a 5-year period [9]. A sufficient number of members is needed to have continuous activity on the list [6]. The list seemed to be too small to create discussions, as most of the messages could be described as ‘questions and answers’, but maybe this was the major need within occupational health. The decline in the number of messages on our list in past years might be explained by the increasing widespread access to detailed information on the Internet in general.

The dominance of occupational hygienists and chemical hazards on the list might be explained by the need for sharing experiences about topics that are difficult to find in the literature such as experiences with protective equipment. The categories ‘organisation of occupational health services’ and ‘working methods in health, safety and environment’ were frequently discussed. These issues include problems of interest for all groups working within occupational health. In contrast to occupation-specific mailing lists [2,7], our list seems to cover a need for discussions on interdisciplinary issues.

The list reflects the opinion of voluntary participants without systematic quality control. However, a study of an unmoderated list for health care consumers concluded that in a sufficiently active forum, participants can identify and correct most misleading statements quickly and reliably [10]. On the other hand, the irrelevant messages in our list could have been avoided if the list was moderated. However, it is claimed that the absence of restrictions is an important aspect of such mailing lists [8]. Also, moderating such a list will take time and resources. We consider it important not to make the threshold high for active participation in such lists and to keep resources used to run the list low. This seems important to be able to establish such lists. However, we know little about the quality of the content and usefulness of the discussions. These topics should be further investigated.


Key points
  • The 10 years of activity of the Norwegian Occupational Health mailing list shows the need for such communication in occupational health services.
  • The mailing list was mostly used for questions and answers and less for discussions.

 


   Conflicts of interest
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
References
 
None declared.


   References
Top
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
 Conflicts of interest
 References
 

  1. Hernandez-Borges A, Macias P, Torres A. Are medical mailing lists reliable sources of professional advice? Med Inform (Lond) (1998) 23:231–236.[CrossRef][Medline]

  2. Hernandez-Borges AA, Macias-Cervi P, Gaspar-Guardado MA, Torres-Alvarez de Arcaya ML, Ruiz-Rabaza A, Ormazabal-Ramos C. Assessing the relative quality of anesthesiology and critical care medicine Internet mailing lists. Anesth Analg (1999) 89:520–525.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

  3. Shapira Y, Talmor D, Artru AA, Lam AM. Resident education and unreviewed material. Anesth Analg (1996) 83:886.[Web of Science][Medline]

  4. Sonnenberg FA. Health information on the Internet. Opportunities and pitfalls. Arch Intern Med (1997) 157:151–152.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

  5. McLauchlan GJ, Cadogan M, Oliver CW. Assessment of an electronic mailing list for orthopaedic and trauma surgery. J R Coll Surg Edinb (1999) 44:36–39.[Web of Science][Medline]

  6. Hernandez-Borges AA, Pareras LG, Jimenez A. Comparative analysis of pediatric mailing lists on the Internet. Pediatrics (1997) 100:E8.

  7. Gilas T, Schein M, Frykberg E. A surgical Internet discussion list (Surginet): a novel venue for international communication among surgeons. Arch Surg (1998) 133:1126–1130.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

  8. Rodriguez-Recio FJ, Sendra-Portero F. Analysis of the Spanish-speaking mailing list RADIOLOGIA. Eur J Radiol (2007) 63:136–143.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]

  9. Sandvik H. [Analysis of the debate on the general practice list system on the Eyr]. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen (2001) 121:3509–3512.[Medline]

  10. Esquivel A, Meric-Bernstam F, Bernstam EV. Accuracy and self correction of information received from an internet breast cancer list: content analysis. Br Med J (2006) 332:939–942.[Abstract/Free Full Text]


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This Article
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