Health promotion in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) – conceptualization and evaluation of a primary prevention measure related to skin protection

Abstract

The demographic changes in Germany are leading to a decrease in labour supply. At the same time, costs of sick leave amount to billions of Euro per year. Against this background, it is particularly important for SMEs with notoriously low staffing level and high demand of skilled workers, to promote the health of their employees. The “healthy at work” project aims at determining concrete support needs for SME and in particular for micro-enterprises (< 10 employees) in order to develop tailored prevention measures. We focus on occupational skin diseases (OSD).