Workplace Prevention

All health-related activities come together in workplace prevention, including occupational safety and health (OSH), return-to-work (RTW) management, and workplace health promotion measures. Engagement with issues around mental health in the world of work can be a starting point for sustainable workplace prevention.

Group of people having a meeting
© Uwe Völkner, Fotoagentur FOX

As a result of digitalisation, demographic change, and climate change, the world of work is currently going through a profound social/ecological transformation. Networked work processes, flexible work structures, complex interaction requirements, and changing values mean work is making new demands on the people who do it.

These changes require leaders and employees to take decisions more autonomously, practise a higher degree of self-management, and display additional flexibility and creativity as they go about their jobs.

This is being accompanied by rises in the numbers of days of incapacity for work and people retiring on reduced earning capacity pensions due to mental illness.

Engagement with mental health in the world of work can open doors to the development of sustainable workplace prevention activities. Such prevention work should not revolve exclusively around the harmful aspects of work that function as stressors, but also place just as much emphasis on the beneficial aspects that function as resources - the dynamic interactions between work, the psyche, and social relationships for instance.

In addition, it is vital to build up networked structures dedicated to detecting mental overload and crises among employees as early as possible and supporting action to deal with them.

The aim is to prevent employees suffering from incapacity for work if at all possible and, where this has unfortunately happened, to ensure they return sustainably to the workplace. This demands the interplay of various approaches:

  • the human-centred management of tasks and working times
  • appropriate action from leaders and teams in response to the problems they encounter
  • personal counselling and support services
  • closer cooperation with the health system

The healthy management of work requirements and relationships and the integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention within the organisation are of central salience.

The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA) is conducting intervention studies on these issues that are examining the integration of different kinds of provision at (and above) the level of the individual organisation:

  • the consortium project Early Intervention at the Workplace (Frühe Intervention am Arbeitsplatz, FRIAA)
  • the cooperative project Intensified Return to Work (RTW) aftercare in psychiatric outpatient clinics situated in care clinics (Intensivierte Return to Work Nachsorge in psychiatrischen Institutsambulanzen von Versorgungskliniken, RTW-PIA)

In large and medium-sized enterprises, the integration of different forms of prevention can be ensured by their organisational health management systems. When it comes to small and micro enterprises, structures for the provision of services have to be developed above the organisational level.

Statutorily required OSH measures represent a good basis on which to initiate prevention activities. Key roles are played by risk assessment and the measures that follow from it. Return-to-work management can also be used as a starting point for action. Occupational physicians, OSH specialists, and the health insurance funds are among the actors that support and advise organisations establishing workplace health management systems and health promotion schemes in Germany.

Employees should be involved in these processes, for example through their organisation’s occupational safety and health committee, health circles, the bodies that represent workers’ interests, and participative research methods.

Research Projects

ProjektnummerF 2525 StatusLaufendes Projekt Formative qualitative evaluation of an early intervention at the workplace (FRIAA) for employees with common mental disorders

To the Project

Forschung laufend

ProjektnummerF 2516 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Stigmatization associated with SARS-CoV-2 in the occupational setting: Summary of the state of knowledge and interview study

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Forschung abgeschlossen

ProjektnummerF 2459 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Gradual Return to Work (G-RTW): Current Implementation and Potentials for Further Development

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Forschung abgeschlossen

ProjektnummerF 2367 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Scoping Review on determinants for a successful return-to-work and systematic overview on interventions to facilitate return to work among employees with mental disorders

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Forschung abgeschlossen

ProjektnummerF 2354 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease

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Forschung abgeschlossen

ProjektnummerF 2414 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Returning to work after mental health problems: cooperation and alliances between healthcare institutions and companies in the return to work process

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Forschung abgeschlossen

ProjektnummerF 2319 StatusAbgeschlossenes Projekt Communicative Action as a factor in the return-to-work-process from the perspective of return-to-work coordinators - A qualitative study for development of a best practice guide

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Forschung abgeschlossen

Publications

Work Organization of Hospital Wards

baua: Report 2016

The number of nursing jobs has been falling for the last years. At the same time, society is confronted with an increasing …

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Workplace Health Promotion in Germany: Prevalence and Utilisation. Analyses on Labour Force Surveys of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 2006 and 2012

Essay 2016

Background and Methods: This article describes representative data on the availability of and individual participation in …

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Occupational safety and health and workplace health promotion - comparative analysis of predictors and moderators of good practice

Report 2015

This report covers three areas: Firstly, predictors and moderators of the implementation of occupational health and safety …

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Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease - Protocol of a Cochrane Review

Essay 2014

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Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease - Protocol of a Cochrane Review

Essay 2014

The conference paper "Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease - Protocol of a Cochrane …

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Workshop on risk communication in the workplace - Results of the discussion

Essay 2014

The complete article can be purchased in German at the website of the Journal "Zentralblatt für Arbeitsmedizin, Arbeitsschutz …

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Does workplace health promotion in Denmark reach relevant target groups?

Essay 2013

The complete article "Does workplace health promotion in Denmark reach relevant target groups?" can be downloaded at the website …

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Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease

Essay 2013

The complete article "Interventions to support return-to-work for patients with coronary heart disease" can be downloaded at the …

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