Conducting organizational-level occupational health interventions: What works?

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in how organizational-level occupational health interventions aimed at improving psychosocial working conditions and employee health and well-being may be planned, implemented and evaluated. It has been claimed that such interventions have the best chance of achieving a significant impact if they follow an intervention process that is structured and also includes the participation of employees. This paper provides an overview of prominent European methods that describe systematic approaches to improving employee health and well-being through the alteration of the way in which work is designed, organized and managed. The methods identified are the Risk Management approach and the Management Standards from Great Britain, the German Health Circles approach, Work Positive from Ireland and Prevenlab from Spain. Comparative analyses reveal that these methods all consist of a five-phase process and that they share a number of core elements within these phases. However, overall the five methods have not been thoroughly validated. To examine the validity of the core elements, we review them in the light of current research in order to support their appropriateness in conducting organizational-level occupational health interventions. Finally, we discuss where we still need more research to determine the working ingredients of organizational-level occupational health interventions.

Keywords:

• occupational health interventions
• participation
• evaluation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank José María Peiró for providing information on the validation of the Prevenlab method and also colleagues from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment and the Danish Working Environment Authority, who as members of that consortium have been involved in the discussions on the methods reported in the Danish reports.