SS25 HEALTH LITERACY AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

• Published in: Occupational medicine (Oxford) 2024-07, Vol.74 (Supplement_1)
• Main Author: El Yamani, Mounia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0962-7480; 1471-8405
• DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqae023.0171

The ability to access, understand, appraise and apply health information is useful in all phases and settings in life, but highly dependent on the environment or social context. The work environment is a social context that determines health in a large proportion of the adult population, and can be a determinant for how health is maintained or promoted and how disease is managed. Occupational safety and health (OSH) management system ensures the dissemination of information regarding health hazards and risks associated with the job tasks and ongoing evaluation of employee wellbeing and health with concomitant initiatives to preserve a safe and healthy work environment. The ILO states that ‘maintaining a preventative safety and health culture requires making use of all available means to increase general awareness, knowledge and understanding of the concepts of [occupational] hazards and risks and how they may be prevented or controlled’. This aspiration reflects key elements that we term as 'occupational health literacy.' We therefore suggested a session that presents occupational health literacy that can guide OSH management systems, empowering both the individual employees and the management with knowledge and competences about prevention and health promotion effectively, and furthermore build organisational structures that enable communication and facilitate action.