Promoting good and sustainable work in occupational health education

The world of work is facing severe challenges due to rapid technological change, globalization, climate change and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. Occupational health professionals must deal with these challenges, but it is unclear how well they have been prepared for this task by their academic training programmes.

To explore content and learning objectives related to these challenges in the curricula of Occupational Medicine (OM) and Occupational Safety, Industrial Hygiene and Ergonomics (OSH), we conducted an online survey among academic leaders of these programmes in universities of several European countries. In addition, related programmes in Human Resource Management (HRM) training were included.

Selected study programmes were explored in terms of the main topics and learning objectives related to the challenges for promoting good and sustainable work in universities in Europe. The study programmes were identified through contacts with professional associations and a website search. Given the exploratory, non-representative study design, data analysis was limited to description.

OM and OSH programmes addressed the above challenges to a very limited extent, except for their disciplinary approach to work-related diseases and injuries. In contrast, HRM programmes were dealing more extensively with globalization, climate change and digitisation.

Significant limitations of knowledge and competences in dealing with the key challenges of the modern world of work were identified. More relational, ethical and interdisciplinary learning is needed in these programmes, addressing core issues of today's world of work.