# Integrating Occupational Health and Safety and Health Promotion: A Qualitative Study in Australia

## TL;DR

This study in Australia explores why occupational health and safety and workplace health promotion are often implemented separately and how they can be better integrated for worker wellbeing.

## Contribution

The study identifies barriers and opportunities for integrating OHS and WHP, emphasizing the need for education and collaboration.

## Key findings

- OHS professionals often lack understanding of WHP, and HP professionals struggle with OHS terminology.
- Integration is hindered by poor WHP evaluation, departmental silos, and lack of policy emphasis.
- Large organizations show more successful integration, often motivated by events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

## Abstract

Growing evidence supports integrating occupational health and safety (OHS) and workplace health promotion (WHP) to enhance worker health, safety and wellbeing. This study aimed to explore in Australia: (1) the reasons for implementing OHS and WHP separately or concurrently/jointly; and (2) potential preferences and implementation contexts of integrated OHS‐WHP approaches.

This qualitative study involved focus groups (n = 3) and individual interviews (n = 40) with 47 OHS professionals, health promotion (HP) professionals, occupational health professionals and employers in Australia. Data were collected between October 2024 and March 2025. A thematic inductive analysis was employed.

Several important insights include: (1) knowledge and attitudes of professionals towards OHS or WHP, particularly regarding OHS professionals' limited understanding of WHP and HP professionals' difficulties with OHS terminology; (2) reasons for inadequate integration implementation, including scarce WHP implementation, invisible WHP benefits, poor WHP evaluation, differing views of OHS professionals about WHP, debate about worker health and WHP quality and implementation issues; (3) trends and examples of integration, often motivated by factors like COVID‐19 and occurring more successfully in large organisations, though often hindered by departmental siloing; and (4) roles, attitudes and knowledge of employers, with varying support for integration across management levels and organisational sizes.

Limited implementation of integrated OHS‐WHP approaches in Australia stems from lack of policy emphases, professional knowledge gaps, and WHP implementation and evaluation concerns.

Urgent educational opportunities for employers and OHS professionals are needed to foster a holistic consideration of worker health and wellbeing, encouraging meaningful collaboration with health professionals and applying systems thinking to contemporary WHP.