The Healthy Working Lives Group has played a leading role in promoting the value of occupational health research in the UK and internationally.

In 2019, the group led a major review commissioned by the Society of Occupational Medicine and partially funded by the Health and Safety Executive: The Value of Occupational Health Research: History, Evolution and Way Forward.

The report was formally launched at the House of Lords in June 2019 by Society of Occupational Medicine Patron, Lord David Blunkett.

About the report

The review examined the history, evolution and future direction of occupational health research.

It considered how occupational health research has contributed to worker health, public health, workplace prevention, return to work, occupational disease control, economic evaluation and evidence-informed policy.

The report also addressed a major challenge for the specialty: occupational health is often undervalued because its benefits can be difficult to measure, may occur over long timeframes, and often sit outside mainstream healthcare systems.

Why this matters

Occupational health research helps us understand the relationship between work and health.

It provides evidence on occupational disease, workplace exposures, sickness absence, return to work, rehabilitation, worker wellbeing, health promotion, service delivery and the economic value of workplace health interventions.

This evidence is essential for protecting workers, supporting employers, improving productivity, reducing avoidable work loss and informing national policy.

Without a strong occupational health research base, decisions about work and health risk becoming reactive, fragmented and based on “this feels about right” — which is not an evidence strategy; it is a committee with biscuits.

Key findings and recommendations

The report made 11 recommendations focused on strengthening occupational health research and the wider occupational health system.

These included the need for:

• a coordinating Centre for Health and Work;
• wider access to occupational health advice for the working-age population;
• increased training and recruitment of occupational health clinicians;
• a national coordinated occupational health research strategy;
• stronger health economic evaluation of occupational health interventions;
• greater promotion of occupational health as a specialty and career;
• sustained investment in the occupational health academic base.

National and international recognition

The report received national and international recognition.

It was the subject of an editorial in Occupational and Environmental Medicine and was featured in the International Congress on Occupational Health newsletter.

The report has also helped drive the development of a designated UK centre for work and health research.

The Healthy Working Lives Group continues to support this agenda through active involvement in the UK Centre for Work and Health strategy group.

Continuing impact

The Value of Occupational Health Research report has helped strengthen the case for occupational health research as a public health, workforce and economic priority.

It has supported national discussion on how to rebuild occupational health academic capacity, improve access to occupational health advice, and develop a more coordinated UK research infrastructure for work and health.

The report remains an important contribution to the argument that occupational health research is not a niche academic activity. It is central to healthier workers, better workplaces and a more sustainable economy.

Key themes

• The value of occupational health research
• Work and health
• Occupational health research capacity
• Academic occupational health
• Centre for Health and Work
• UK Centre for Work and Health
• Occupational health access
• Health economic evaluation
• Evidence-informed policy
• Occupational disease prevention
• Return to work and rehabilitation
• Worker wellbeing
• Healthy working lives

Selected outputs

1. The Value of Occupational Health Research: History, Evolution and Way Forward
   Lalloo, D., Macdonald, E., Vargas-Prada Figueroa, S., Germeni, E. and McIntosh, E. (2019). Society of Occupational Medicine, London.
   https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/189614/
2. The Value of Occupational Health Research
   Guest blog by Professor Drushca Lalloo, lead author of the report. Society of Occupational Medicine.
   https://www.som.org.uk/value-occupational-health-research
3. Occupational health research: a public health priority
   Editorial in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 76(12), pp. 873–874.
   https://oem.bmj.com/content/76/12/873