'Working with Dust: Health , Dust and Diseases in the History of Occupational Health' conference to be held at the University of Exeter on 10th -12th April 2006. (360G-Wellcome-079553_Z_06_Z)

Working with Dust: Health, Dust and Diseases in the History of Occupational Health The Wellcome-funded Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter is engaged on a set of research initiatives signalled by its Strategic Award. One of the themes established in the Award is the history of work-related illnesses and injuries. In completing the Wellcome project on the history of medical perceptions and treatments for silicosis in the United Kingdom, Melling and Bufton contributed to a network of scholars, including Professor Christopher Sellers of the United States. From this close collaboration emerged the proposal for an international conference which would consolidate this international network and draw together a wide range of research scholars. This year is particularly apposite since a range of research which was begun at the time of the previous Exeter conferences and seminars on the topic (held in 2000-2001) have now come to fruition and it is a valuable point at which to establish a benchmark for an assessment of this work and establish directions for future research. The conference will include the following themes: Testaments and oral history of dusty workplaces. Coal mining: colliery diseases and the struggle for compensation. Asbestos. Silicosis to pneumoconiosis. Tuberculosis and industrial disease. Gender and industrial disease. State responses to respiratory illness at work. International models of dust-induced industrial illness. International Labour Office and the regulation of dusty work. Changing frontiers in the burden of dust-induced diseases: developing countries. The frontier between work and the environment in the incidence of disease.