A/HRC/20/15 surveillance, in order to assess the impact of occupational health laws and policies prior to implementation. Additionally, States are required to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their national occupational health policies as part of their core obligation to periodically review these policies. This requirement includes the obligation to regularly inspect worksites and production facilities in order to assess employer compliance with occupational health laws and policies. Periodic review is necessary in order to ensure the continual refinement of occupational health laws and policies to account for evolving health risks and new technologies. In both instances, monitoring and evaluation must be informed by international standards, including those developed by WHO and ILO. 31. The right to health requires robust participation of workers: in defining research priorities; in collecting epidemiological data prior to law and policy formulation; and in monitoring and evaluating occupational health laws and policies. In all instances, the State must ensure that the processes of monitoring and evaluation are not captured by private interests. For example, in many cases employers fund epidemiological research and exert undue influence on the findings.26 The State must not allow these studies to impact policy formulation. 32. Public health professionals have traditionally taken an approach to epidemiological research that focuses on the population as an object to be studied, thereby failing to recognize and utilize the population‟s experiential knowledge. In contrast, more recent approaches utilize participatory research methods that broaden the epidemiological investigation from the individual to the population level and emphasize the role of the socio-political context in which disease occurs. For example, community-based participatory research conducts „research with, rather than on communities, affirms the value of communities‟ experiential knowledge and stresses a collaborative process‟. 27 33. Community-based participatory research is a joint-learning process in which researchers and community members contribute equally. It empowers community members through building local capacity, promotes their dignity by increasing the control they exert over their lives, and achieves a balance between research and community-level action. The approach employs a variety tools in the formulation and implementation of health laws and policies and systematizes workers‟ collective experiences concerning occupational health risks and outcomes as a means of identifying and controlling risks in the work environment.28 34. Right to health indicators and benchmarks must play an integral role in the periodic review of occupational health laws and policies in order to monitor and evaluate these laws and policies. There are three categories of human rights indicators: structural, process and outcome indicators.29 Structural indicators are used to determine whether key structures or mechanisms necessary for the realization of the right to health are in place. Process indicators measure discrete aspects of State policies and interventions toward realizing the right to health; whereas outcome indicators measure the impact of such interventions on the health of populations. Benchmarks are the national targets with respect to each indicator. 26 27 28 29 Neil Pearce, “Corporate influences on epidemiology,” International Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 37, No. 1 (2008), pp. 46-53. Margaret Leung, Irene Yen, and Meredith Minkler, “Community-based participatory research: a promising approach for increasing epidemiology‟s relevance in the 21st century,” International Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 33, No. 3 (2004), pp. 499-506. R. Loewenson, C. Laurell and C. Hogstedt, “Participatory approaches in occupational health research,” Arbette och Hälsa, vol. 38 (1994). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attinable standard physical and mental health (E/CN.4/2006/48), pp. 14-15. 11