A comprehensive review under the auspices of the Occupational Safety and Health Council was undertaken in 1998/99 to collect and collate information about all occupational health studies that had been done in Hong Kong during the period 1964-1997. Both published and unpublished reported were included. Thevast majority of the reports were based on cross-sectional surveys. A substantial number of published reports were discussion or review papers. Most studies were quite low-powered in terms of documenting causal relationships. The study subjects and the numbers of studies over time reflected major health problems accompanying the development and changes of local industries and trades. The current paper attempts to update on the recent developments in occupational epidemiology research in Hong Kong focusing on original studies published in Medline journals.

A Medline search was performed from 1998 through 2009. A main key word "Hong Kong" plus one or more of the following terms were used in the search: occupational and relevant sub-headings， dust， toxin and relevant sub-headings， compressed air， mechanical， ergonomics and all sub-headings， stress (mechanical， psychological)， musculoskeletal and sub-headings. Only original papers with data presentation (including metaanalysis) were included and major features were abstracted: occupational hazards， occupationalj industrial groups， epidemiological study design. Laboratory-based studies were excluded.

A total of 46 original papers related to occupational epidemiology in Hong Kong were identified during the period 1998 to 2009， which was substantially more than the sum of papers published during 1964-1997. For occupational hazards， and ergonomics hazards (including psychosocial factors) were most frequently studied， and were followed by dust， biological and chemical hazards. Only one study involved the physical hazard of noise. The most frequently studied occupational/industrial group was health care workers， followed by construction workers. The most common study design used was cross-sectional study， but analytic studies (case-control， cohort， meta-analysis) put toge也er accounted for nearly two fifths of the studies. Compared with studies carried out before 1998， biological hazards (infections) among health care workers and ergonomic issues have emerged as new focuses in occupational health in Hong Kong， while dust problems and the construction industry remained important. A higher proportion of analytic studies have been conducted in the recent years， which should contribute more to documenting causal relationships.

Despite the limited resources and the small pool， occupational health researchers in Hong Kong have made great progress in the past 12 years. The changing focus of the epidemiological studies in the recent years reflected the changing economic activities， as well as the prevailing occupational health concerns in the society.