Prevention – the not so easy choice until now!

The workplace should be a place where workers feel safe, free from danger, motivated and healthy to be more efficient and productive. The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2010) definition of a healthy workplace is one in which workers and managers collaborate to use a continual improvement process to protect and promote the health, safety and well-being of all workers and the sustainability of the organisation itself.  

When people are healthy, they are better able to take on physical and emotional stress, recover from illness and push themselves to build sustainable and strong companies that can operate effectively in the long run. A healthy organisation is characterised by its high levels of people satisfaction, low levels of grievances, low absenteeism, low turnover, few accidents, absence of workplace violence, and is deeply linked to the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of the organisation.  

The concept of Organisational Health has emerged in the last decades as the organisation’s ability to function effectively, to cope adequately, to change appropriately, and to grow from within, involving the interaction of organisational and individual key factors, which means that for an organisation to be healthy, the health of their employees needs to be considered, but is more than the sum of its parts.  

Literature shows that organisational health strongly influences the management of employee wellbeing. The concept of prevention in organisations is well established in the occupational safety field (health protection), however in the domain of health promotion, very little is done still today in organisations, such as small, isolated, and fragmented actions. Now, more than ever, health prevention must be given a prominent and strategic place in organisational management.  

Prevention is the act of hindering negative outcomes from occurring. Prevention in the workplace is an attempt to hinder illness and diseases or other types of harm to people. Typically, health prevention interventions in the workplace can be divided into three major types: the primary level – intervening before health effects occur; secondary level – screening to identify diseases in the early stages; and tertiary level – managing the disease after diagnosis to slow or stop its progression. Typically, most of the health prevention efforts of organisations are still essentially concentrated in the secondary or tertiary interventions, i.e., when first symptoms appear and all action from the organisation is reactive and not proactive (primary intervention).  

But what if it was possible to eliminate the source of the hazard rather than just preventing or reducing exposure? The concept of primordial prevention consists of actions to modify the population health determinants and inhibit the establishment of factors known to increase the future risks of disease. These type of workplace actions can be particularly effective in bringing changes that prevent or reduce environment-related illness and disease. The healthy choices in the organisations must also become the easiest choices to make and should focus on root causes and antecedents of health outcomes.  

This shift in attitudes towards physical or mental health in the workplace, may help reshape prevention to a more empowered concept of health promotion. Approaching prevention from a multi-level perspective will help organisations to make this leap and achieve these outcomes in a faster, more efficiently and effectively way.  

According to Wallace (2006) prevention is a spectrum that can cover different scopes: 1) influencing policy and legislation; 2) mobilising neighbourhoods and communities; 3) fostering coalitions and networks; 4) changing internal practices and policies; 5) strengthening individual knowledge and skills; 6) educating professionals and 7) promoting community education.  

Acting at these levels may seem like a difficult challenge for an organisation, yet it will be worth every effort made. Acting at the policy and legislative level can have a significant impact on workplace safety and health, particularly when organisations do have the possibility to advocate for making changes to national laws and adoption of formal policies. There are specific cases where the laws and policies for health promotion in the workplaces already exist but adding or changing them can improve its effectiveness. Organisations can also strive to go beyond the current legislation and be a trailblazer of innovative and adaptive health prevention approaches in their work environment.  

Also, organisations can work towards the mobilisation of neighbourhoods and communities by partnering with local organisations and community leaders to raise awareness about health, workplace safety, engaging with the goal to identify health risks at work and to address these issues. These goals could be aligned with the social impact of the business itself or be part of the corporate social responsibility strategy in place.  

Creating coalitions with colleagues, such as workers resources groups can also be highly effective. By working together, people are more likely to succeed in projects, address shared challenges, mitigate health risks and improve the quality of their work. In addition, forming coalitions can help eliminate effort duplication and encourage communication and cooperation, which can lead to better outcomes for the organisational health.  

Changing internal practices and policies, is usually the most frequently overlooked component of the spectrum, yet this level has enormous potential. By changing internal practices and standards towards health promotion, an organisation will greatly affect the health and safety of its members, enhancing satisfaction, commitment, performance, wellbeing and ultimately organisational profitability. When organisations do assess psychosocial risks on a continuous approach they have clear insights on each programs and practices need to be re-designed or adjusted in order to mitigate the perceived health risks or to boost the current wellbeing promotors.  

There are proven strategies that organisations can use to improve health literacy, by strengthening individual knowledge and skills. One approach is to encourage their people to continue learning and developing knowledge about risk, health, and safety management, this can involve providing training and education opportunities, both formal or informal. Organisations can also create open lines of communication with people to better understand their needs and concerns and address them at the right time and place – continuous listening.  

Providing education and training to managers, human resources and occupational health professionals can help ensure that people receive the support and resources they need to work healthy and safely, whereas fostering community education can promote the physical and mental health of communities involved, leading to the organisation’s sustainable flourishing.  

Overall, prevention is key to risk and health management in organisations, but it presents itself also as fundamental building block of socially sustainable organisations and workplaces of the future, that are healthy and safe for all.  Investing fully and strategically on prevention will bring numerous benefits to your organisation, including reduced costs associated with mental health, accidents and injuries, improved productivity and morale, and enhanced reputation and customer satisfaction.  

For sure this is the right year to start working or reviewing their prevention approach on health@work in a professional and systemic approach and it will lead to many worthwhile improvements in every organisation, team or individual.  

References: 

AFMC Primer on Population health (2007) A Virtual Textbook on Public Health Concepts for Clinicians. Chapter 4 Basic Concepts in prevention and health promotion. Access in https://phprimer.afmc.ca/en/part-i/chapter-4/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017). Picture of America: Our Health and Environment – Prevention. Access in https://www.cdc.gov/pictureofamerica/pdfs/Picture_of_America_Prevention.pdf

Cohen, L., & Swift, S. (1999). The spectrum of prevention: developing a comprehensive approach to injury prevention. Injury prevention, 5(3), 203-207.

Cotton, P., & Hart, P. M. (2003). Occupational wellbeing and performance: A review of organisational health research. Australian Psychologist, 38(2), 118-127.

Feder, M. (2022). What is organizational health? Why it’s important and how to assess and implement it. Access in https://www.phoenix.edu/blog/what-is-organizational-health.html

Tetrick, L. E. (2002). Individual and organizational health. In Historical and current perspectives on stress and health. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 

Wallace RB. Primary prevention. In: Breslow L, Cengage G, editors. Encyclopedia of Public Health [online]. 2006.  Available from URL: http://www.enotes.com/public-health- encyclopedia/primary-prevention

World Health Organization & Burton, Joan. (‎2010)‎. WHO healthy workplace framework and model: background and supporting literature and practices. World Health Organization. Access in  https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/113144

Yüceler, A., Doğanalp, B., & Kaya, Ş. D. (2013). The relation between organizational health and organizational commitment. Mediterranean journal of social sciences, 4(10), 781.