What is AEPSAL?
AEPSAL is the acronym for the Association of Specialists in Occupational Health and Safety, a non-profit Spanish professional association based in Barcelona. It brings together technicians and specialists working in the field of occupational risk prevention and occupational health, both in its technical and healthcare aspects.
It is a professional association, not a professional body or a public agency: it has no official regulatory or certifying authority over preventive activities, and membership does not equate to legal authorization to practice. Its role is that of a sectoral association: training, dissemination of technical and regulatory information, and services to its members.
Purpose and scope of action
The association focuses its activity on two complementary fronts: continuing education for prevention professionals and the dissemination of technical, regulatory, and current information for the sector. Its scope of action is Spain, with an online training campus that allows for nationwide reach from its headquarters in Barcelona.
Functions and main lines of work
AEPSAL’s activity is organized into several stable lines.
- Specialized training. It offers its own courses and programs on occupational risk prevention and occupational health through an online training campus.
- Technical dissemination. Publishes La Preventeca, a periodic bulletin with news, regulatory updates and technical content on occupational risk prevention, distributed to its subscribers.
- Job Bank. It maintains a sector-specific job bank service that connects job offers in occupational health and safety with professionals in the sector.
- Promotion of judicial expertise in occupational risk prevention. It promotes the expert activity of prevention specialists in legal proceedings related to work accidents and occupational diseases, as a way of applying the technical knowledge of its members.
Contribution to safety and health at work
AEPSAL’s contribution is that of a professional association: continuing education and knowledge updates for those already working in prevention, and a platform for disseminating technical and regulatory information. It does not provide prevention services to companies nor does it replace the prevention services that regulations require of each organization.
Its promotion of judicial expertise in occupational risk prevention has a specific value: it contributes to ensuring that legal proceedings related to work accidents and occupational diseases have technical reports prepared by specialists from the sector itself, an area of practical application that is not very visible outside of it.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
AEPSAL is one of the Spanish professional associations that make up the institutional advisory committee of the ORP International Foundation. Its contribution to this body is the perspective of the occupational risk prevention and workplace health specialists that the association brings together from Barcelona, along with public bodies and entities from other countries with which it shares the committee, although this does not imply any joint activity beyond that participation.
Practical application
For occupational health and safety technicians, AEPSAL offers a channel for continuing education and regulatory updates through its online campus and La Preventeca. For professionals interested in expert witness work, the association provides a pathway to promoting this specialty within the sector. As with any professional association, it’s important to distinguish its educational and outreach role from the legal obligations of the company and its occupational health and safety service, which are independent of whether its technicians belong to any association.
