Unanswered questions in occupational medicine. Tell us!

Topic: Health promotion
Focus: Occupational medicine
Method: Co-creation, Crowdsourcing

Duration: January 2023 - October 2023
Status: completed
Location: Austria
Funding

What is the project about?

Most people spend a large part of their time at work. This makes it all the more important to minimise potential hazards and risks in the workplace in order to prevent illness and accidents and to promote the overall health of workers. This is where occupational medicine comes into play. However, for many health-related questions and issues in occupational medicine, scientific answers are still lacking. For this reason, the Austrian Academy of Occupational Medicine and Prevention (AAMP) launched the prioritisation project ‘Unresolved Questions in Occupational Medicine. Have your say!’, to collect research questions from practice that remain unanswered in occupational medicine. The AAMP was supported in this project by the LBG OIS Centre. The aim of the project was to collect unanswered research questions for occupational medicine by involving experts from various fields. To this end, a crowdsourcing initiative followed by prioritisation was set up and carried out. At the end of the process, the AAMP had a list of unanswered research questions for occupational medicine, which it can now use to continue its work.

What is the goal of the project?

The project “Unanswered questions in occupational medicine. Tell us!”, occupational health practitioners, occupational health services, experts from the health sector for whom occupational health is relevant, employers, employees and anyone with an interest in occupational health were invited to submit their unanswered questions, under-researched topics and/or ideas for research in the field of occupational health via an online platform. The project pursued two objectives:

Identification of new, scientifically unanswered research questions in occupational medicine

Identification of questions in occupational medicine that have already been scientifically answered, but about which there is little to no knowledge among occupational health practitioners

This resulted in the following project outcomes:

The identified, unanswered questions in occupational medicine are brought to the attention of the scientific community by the AAMP in order to generate the necessary knowledge and resolve health issues in the workplace.

The questions for occupational medicine that have already been scientifically answered, but about which there is little to no knowledge among occupational health practitioners, are processed by the AAMP, and knowledge on these topics is disseminated in AAMP courses and training programmes, as well as at ÖGA congresses.

Who participates in the project?

Occupational health practitioners and occupational health services, health sector experts for whom occupational health is relevant, employers, employees and anyone with an interest in occupational health

How are participants involved in the project?

From early March to early May 2023, occupational health practitioners, occupational health services, health sector experts for whom occupational health is relevant, employers, employees and anyone with an interest in occupational health were invited to submit their unanswered questions regarding occupational health via an online questionnaire. The online questionnaire contained the following two open-ended crowdsourcing questions, designed in collaboration with the steering group:

Which occupational health questions remain unanswered for you?
In your opinion, which occupational health questions will play an increasingly important role in the future?

In addition, socio-demographic characteristics were collected.

Between early March and early May 2023, the crowdsourcing questionnaire was opened a total of 1,155 times. The online questionnaire was completed in full 165 times (a response rate of 14.3%). Following an intensive data cleaning phase, 67 questions potentially relevant to occupational medicine were identified for further research. These were in turn divided into the categories ‘unanswered’ and ‘answered’ and sent to the members of the steering group. The members of the steering group were asked to select their top 10 most relevant questions and to send this selection to the core team prior to the co-creation workshop. These selection steps resulted in a reduction to 40 potentially relevant questions. The aim of the co-creation workshop with the steering group was then to select from the list of 40 potentially relevant questions those that were of the highest importance to the steering group members and should therefore be addressed as a matter of priority by occupational health research. Following three prioritisation steps, the eight most relevant, central questions for occupational health were identified.

How are participants recruited for the project?

The crowdsourcing initiative was promoted through a wide variety of channels. Austrian occupational health practitioners and the occupational health service were invited to take part via the AAMP newsletter. The project was also presented at the ÖGA Congress in April 2023. Members of the steering group shared the information through their own channels, and the LBG OIS Centre publicised the call for participation on its social media channels.

What are the results of the project?

The eight most relevant, key questions for occupational medicine have been identified. These eight prioritised questions are now being published on the AAMP website, and Austrian occupational physicians and occupational health services will be informed about them via the AAMP newsletter. Furthermore, the AAMP will present these eight key issues to the scientific community, on the one hand to clarify which aspects of these broad issues are already covered by scientific evidence, and on the other hand to determine which aspects remain largely unanswered. The aim is to generate the necessary knowledge on these issues in order to resolve health problems in the workplace.