Abstract
Employers are increasingly interested in offering workplace wellness programs in addition to occupational health and safety (OHS) activities to promote worker health, wellbeing, and productivity. Yet, there is a dearth of research on workplace factors that enable the implementation of OHS and wellness to inform the future integration of these activities in Canadian workplaces. This study explored workplace demographic factors associated with the co-implementation of OHS and wellness activities in a heterogenous sample of Canadian workplaces. Using a cross-sectional survey of 1285 workplaces from 2011 to 2014, latent profiles of co-occurrent OHS and wellness activities were identified, and multinomial logistic regression was used to assess associations between workplace demographic factors and the profiles. Most workplaces (84%) demonstrated little co-occurrence of OHS and wellness activities. Highest co-occurrence was associated with large workplaces (odds ratio (OR) = 3.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.15–5.89), in the electrical and utilities sector (OR = 5.57, 95% CI = 2.24–8.35), and a high people-oriented culture (OR = 4.70, 95% CI = 1.59–5.26). Promoting integrated OHS and wellness approaches in medium to large workplaces, in select industries, and emphasizing a people-oriented culture were found to be important factors for implementing OHS and wellness in Canadian organizations. Informed by these findings, future studies should understand the mechanisms to facilitate the integration of OHS and wellness in workplaces.
Highlights
The workplace is a social determinant of health, with employment and working conditions linked to a range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes [1,2]
Representatives from 1692 organizations responded to the Ontario Leading Indicators Project (OLIP) survey from 7285 approached
While distinguishing workplaces by their implementation of occupational health and safety (OHS) and wellness activities may not reflect a truly integrated worker health approach [23], our findings provide a better understanding of the workplace factors associated with having suitable resources to support an integrated approach in the Canadian labor market
Summary
The workplace is a social determinant of health, with employment and working conditions linked to a range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes [1,2]. Work-related injuries and illnesses are associated with morbidity and substantial financial and social costs, and health hazards from work can impact people’s personal lives and lifestyle [3,4]. Studies show that lifestyle risk factors (e.g., being a smoker, stressful lives outside of work, being obese, and heavy alcohol use) can increase the likelihood of sustaining workplace injuries more so than among those without such risk factors [5,6]. North American employers are required to provide occupational health and safety (OHS). Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 2739; doi:10.3390/ijerph15122739 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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