Workplace Health Promotion in German Social Firms—Offers, Needs and Challenges from the Perspectives of Employees, Supervisors and Experts

On the general labor market, social firms provide 30–50% of people with different types of disabilities the opportunity to gain employment. However, the topic of workplace health promotion (WHP), needs for improvement and accompanied challenges are neglected in the current research and were the focus of the present study. Therefore, data triangulation was used between July and December 2020 by combining three focus groups with employees (n = 14 employees) with 16 interviews with supervisors from several social firms in Northern Germany (e.g., from catering, cleaning or bicycle repair sectors). 17 semi-structured telephone interviews with experts in the field of WHP or social firms were added. All approaches were audio-taped, transcribed and anonymized. To analyze the data, Mayring’s qualitative content analysis was used. The results indicated that several offers for WHP, including sport, nutrition and relaxation, were offered, as well as those on smoking cessation, cooperation with external organizations or training and education offers. Needs for improvement were stated referring to additional sport offers, support for implementing a healthy diet, offers for relaxation, financial incentives or collaborations with external organizations. A low take-up of offers; a lack of resources, structures or management support; compatibility of offers with work time and organization; challenges with available trainings or the consideration of individual needs and capacities were highlighted as challenges. Overall, there is a need for further interventional and longitudinal research on WHP in social firms.

The pandemic and its impact on occupational health and safety among mechanical engineering industries in India

Workplace health and safety has been of paramount importance for any nation and the stakeholders- authorities, employers and workers – must have reasonable sensitization for the same. During the COVID 19 pandemic, lots of policy formulations and regulations had to incorporate within the industries for the health and welfare of the workers. The “new normal” will take some time for adjustments, challenges and implications to be implemented effectively and consistently. Certain processes in the workplace, especially in the mechanical engineering companies, are likely for high close contact incidences. Special situations pertaining to workers’’ health, like crowded accommodations, travel risks as well common canteens, all need to be reconsidered for providing safer environment to the workers, as far as the current pandemic is concerned. This requires coordinated efforts from all the stakeholders within the mechanical field through subconscious acceptance of the norms of safety and hygiene at all levels.

Digitizing Social Counseling—Insights for Workplace Health Management

Working digitally can lead to changes in work organization and social interactions, as well as work pace and workload. Online counseling is more and more integrated in social counseling. Research exists on employees’ and users’ attitudes towards online counseling as well as on the advantages and disadvantages of online counseling. There is a lack of studies on the stressors and strains caused by the increasing digitalization and the associated health consequences in this context. With an interview study, we investigated the general work situation of counselors, with a focus on stressors, strain, and resources caused by online counseling. Consecutively, we discuss the results in relation to their impact on workplace health management. Twenty-two explorative interviews with counselors from a German welfare organization were conducted in 2019 and 2020. Qualitative content analysis according to Mayring was used for analysis. Counselors’ use of online devices depends on their own digital affinity and is likely to be used when advantages for clients are seen. Difficulties were mentioned in establishing a relationship of trust with the clients. Good teamwork and regular informal exchanges among colleagues contribute to job satisfaction. Overall, we found only few health-related effects. Results of the study suggest that digitization can have positive effects on the job satisfaction of counselors, if the associated changes are supported by organizational measures.

Pathways to Employee Outcomes in a Workplace Health Promotion Program

Purpose This study examined the relationship between employee outcomes and employer implementation of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) for chronic disease prevention. Design Cross-sectional samples collected at 3 time points in a cluster-randomized, controlled trial of a workplace health promotion program to promote 12 EBIs. Setting King County, WA. Sample Employees of 63 small, low-wage workplaces. Measures Employer EBI implementation; 3 types of employee outcomes: perceived implementation of EBIs; perceived employer support for health; and health-related behaviors, perceived stress, depression risk, and presenteeism. Analysis Intent-to-treat and correlation analyses using generalized estimating equations. We tested bivariate associations along potential paths from EBI implementation, through perceived EBI implementation and perceived support for health, to several employee health-related outcomes. Results The intent-to-treat analysis found similar employee health-related behaviors in intervention and control workplaces at 15 and 24 months. Workplaces implemented varying combinations of EBIs, however, and bivariate associations were significant for 4 of the 6 indicators of physical activity and healthy eating, as well as perceived stress, depression risk, and presenteeism. We did not find significant positive associations for cancer screening and tobacco cessation. Conclusion Our findings support broader dissemination of EBIs for physical activity and healthy eating, as well as more focus on improving employer support for employee health. They also suggest we need better interventions for cancer screening and tobacco cessation.

Regulating Occupational Health and Safety in EU and China

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is an important aspect of the labour protection field. This chapter compares OHS legal regimes of China and EU. Comprehensive workplace health and safety legislations of the two systems are described, and the different aspects, including for example, legislative aim, the legislation structure, general obligation, OHS insurance, moral harassment, law enforcement, etc., are detailed. Based on the analysis, conclusions are made and policy recommendations from both legislation aspect and enforcement aspect are provided.

Opportunities and Challenges of Using Mobile Applications for Workplace Health Promotion

Workplace health promotion (WHP) needs be adjusted to the new ways of working and improved in terms of participation rates. As mobile applications (apps) have proved to be effective in various health areas, it might also be a solution for WHP. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the requirements employees would have on such an app for WHP. Therefore, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees and experts of an IT company. Most employees were rather positive about such an app. Concerns were stated in terms of added value and data security. Variations were found in preferred functionalities. Apps might thus be effective for WHP but would need to add value compared to apps available for private usage. Additionally, clear communication about data privacy would be expected.

Participatory approaches in the context of research into workplace health promotion to improve physical activity levels and reduce sedentary behaviour among office-based workers: protocol for a scoping review

IntroductionPhysical activity (PA) workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions have traditionally used a top-down research approach where end-users are considered as passive subjects. Whereas participatory research (PR) involves the end-users within the research process utilising a bottom-up approach which allows the integration of the researcher’s expertise and the end-users lived experiences, which has been shown to aid in the acceptability and relevance of the research. This protocol describes a scoping review which will explore, identify and map PR techniques and their impact when used in office-based WHP interventions designed to improve PA and reduce sedentary behaviour levels.Methods and analysisThis scoping review will follow the guidelines and framework proposed by Levac et al and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Articles will be retrieved via five databases: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar and OpenGrey, searching from 1 January 1995, to the date of search in 2022. A search strategy was piloted, to identify appropriate keywords and MeSH terms. Two independent reviewers will screen retrieved articles based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria by title and abstract first, followed by the full text. Our key inclusion criteria relating to our population, intervention, comparison, outcome framework will be to include studies which focused on office-based working adults and that the PA WHP took a PR approach. Articles written in non-English languages will be excluded. Any discrepancies will be discussed until a consensus is reached. Data will be extracted, charted and summarised via a narrative synthesis and qualitative thematic analyses.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval was not required for this scoping review. The completed scoping review findings will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed journal which has a research scope that encompasses PR and WHP. The findings will be presented at appropriate academic conferences and to project partners to inform the design of a WHP intervention.

The NICE OECD countries’ geographic search filters: Part 2—validation of the MEDLINE and Embase (Ovid) filters

Objective: We previously developed draft MEDLINE and Embase (Ovid) geographic search filters for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries to assess their feasibility for finding evidence about the countries. Here, we describe the validation of these search filters.Methods: We identified OECD country references from thirty National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines to generate gold standard sets for MEDLINE (n=2,065) and Embase (n=2,023). We validated the filters by calculating their recall against these sets. We then applied the filters to existing search strategies for three OECD-focused NICE guideline reviews (NG103 on flu vaccination, NG140 on abortion care, and NG146 on workplace health) to calculate the filters’ impact on the number needed to read (NNR) of the searches.Results: The filters both achieved 99.95% recall against the gold standard sets. Both filters achieved 100% recall for the three NICE guideline reviews. The MEDLINE filter reduced NNR from 256 to 232 for the NG103 review, from 38 to 27 for the NG140 review, and from 631 to 591 for the NG146 review. The Embase filter reduced NNR from 373 to 341 for the NG103 review, from 101 to 76 for the NG140 review, and from 989 to 925 for the NG146 review.Conclusion: The NICE OECD countries’ search filters are the first validated filters for the countries. They can save time for research topics about OECD countries by finding the majority of evidence about OECD countries while reducing search result volumes in comparison to no filter use.