Occupational Health Psychology (OHP)

Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) is a field of psychology aimed at promoting the safety, health, and well-being of individuals at work. This includes identifying risk factors for sickness, injury, or stress in the workplace, and drawing up interventions at an individual and organizational level.

For example, if workers at a certain office are found to have a high incidence of urinary tract infections, a practitioner of OHP would probably investigate to find out why so many employees are getting sick. He might learn that employees are not allowed to take drinks to their workstations, they seldom get up to go to the one available water cooler, and they do not take a lot of bathroom breaks. He might then come up with interventions like allowing workers to take drinks with covered containers, adding more water coolers, and conducting an information campaign aimed at encouraging workers to keep themselves hydrated and taking more frequent trips to the bathroom.