The Jamaica Occupational Health and Safety Professionals Association (JOHSPA), formerly known as Jamaica Occupational Health Professionals Association (JOHPA), is a not for profit organisation whose overall mandate is to promote health, safety and well-being in the workplace.
Who Are WE?
JOHSPA was officially launched on 3rd October 2008. It was the brainchild of Dr. Sharon East-Miles, a practicing Occupational Health physician and Immediate Past President of JOHSPA. She sought to bring together like-minded individuals who were working individually to improve the quality of health and safety in the workplace. The thinking of “together each achieves more” resulted in the formation of what was initially JOHPA. The Association’s first President was Dr. Owen James, formerly Medical Director of WINDALCO, who now does consulting in Occupational Health and Safety.
In 2015, the name of the association was changed to its present name to widen the scope of membership and it was officially registered with the Companies Office of Jamaica in June 2017.
JOHSPA uses various methods to achieve these aims, including:
Sensitising the general public
This includes employees, employers, managers about OHS through the media and presentations at various events.
Providing relevant press coverage
JOHSPA provides position papers or press releases on incidents involving workplace health and safety.
Furthering education in OHS
This is provided to our members and other interested OHS professionals.
Organizational collaboration
We work with the Ministry of Labour & Social Security and other groups in the drafting of OHS legislation.
Our membership includes persons from a wide variety of professions, not just OHS professionals. Among our current membership are employment lawyers, Human Resource personnel, doctors, nurses, public health inspectors, lecturers, managers and university students. The common factor is our passion for and interest in Occupational Health and Safety. Our membership fees are very affordable and members currently receive discounts on continuing education seminar fees.
Our organisation also serves as a meeting place where discussions and activities take place to best serve the needs of its members as well as the general public of Jamaica. The Association hopes to benefit as wide a range of employees as possible in as many different types of workplaces as possible, the eventual outcome being a healthy worker population and a healthy national economic climate. There is a lot of work to be done and we can only do this with a strong and vibrant membership. We urge you to become a member of JOHSPA and join with us in our efforts to actively promote and work towards a safe and healthy place of work for all Jamaicans, as we seek to complete our mission “To do all we can for all we can in preventing occupational illness or injury and promoting workplace health and safety.”