Training in Occupational Health Psychology 579illness and injury. The “rst year of operations found positive
trends in all measures. Over the course of that year, the OHC
staff made more than 10,000 individual employee contacts
and conducted over 250 organizational consultations. Cus-
tomer satisfaction in every case was rated as excellent.
Outcome data indicated a 4% reduction in workers• com-
pensation claims following a doubling of claims experience
the previous “ve years and exceeding the or ganizationally set
goal of a 3% savings, a 58% reduction in behaviorally related
mortality, and a 12% reduction in lost productivity associated
with health care utilization for job-related illness and injuries.
TRAINING IN OCCUPATIONAL
HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
de“nes OHP: •Occupational health psychology concerns the
application of psychology to improving the quality of work-
life and to protecting and promoting the safety, health and
well-being of workersŽ (Sauter et al., 1999). This rather
broad de“nition incorporates a lar ge array of potential risk
factors as well as numerous factors that could enhance safety
and health in the workplace. Programs being developed in the
United States and those that have been founded in The
Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have several
common elements. The European programs typically focus
on organizational risk factors for stress, illness, and injury
and work redesign as the primary intervention. U.S. pro-
grams may be more varied at present because of their early
stage of development. In this section, we present a model for
training in OHP that we believe re”ects the de“nition of
OHP, the underlying philosophy of OHP, and incorporates
many of the common elements of U.S. and European
programs.
The de“nition of OHP includes two dimensions: the pro-
tection from harm and the promotion of health. This bifurca-
tion mirrors the de“nition of health as the absence of illness
versus health as something more than simply the absence of
illness (Downie & Macnaughton, 1998; Raphael, 1998). Thus,
it is important that training in OHP recognize the in”uence of
organization of work factors in both the reduction of illness
and injury and the enhancement of health and well-being.
Underlying the philosophy and development of OHP is
the multidisciplinary approach to understanding the work en-
vironment, behavior of individuals in that environment, and
the interaction between the work environment and their be-
havior that results in physical and psychological well-being.
Ilgen (1990) recognized that disciplines and specialties
within disciplines view problems and generate solutions
based on their own perspectives. Understanding a complex
phenomenon such as health in today•s complex work envi-
ronments requires not only knowledge of key content areas in
psychology but also an awareness of other relevant content
areas and disciplines. This awareness, coupled with leader-
ship and communication skills, allows occupational health
psychologists to bring together and lead a team with the nec-
essary skills to address the complexity of the concerns with-
out being blinded by their own disciplines.
In this framework, a training model for OHP that ac-
knowledges content areas to be covered and skills to be de-
veloped can be visualized. The list of content areas is indeed
long. If we consider the risk factors for occupational stress
that have been compiled (e.g., the review by Kahn &
Byosiere, 1992), there are multiple disciplines and specialties
that can contribute to OHP. Industrial and organizational
psychology, clinical psychology, life-span developmental
psychology, and social psychology offer relevant knowledge
as re”ected in Volumes 5, 6, 8, and 12 of this Handbook.
Topics that might be incorporated in a graduate level OHP
seminar would typically include occupational stress and
burnout, job and work design, social support, organizational
health, health psychology, occupational safety and health
hazards, job security, work-nonwork balance, and individual
differences.
In addition, other disciplines can contribute to our under-
standing of organizational risk factors and individual behav-
ior as they relate to health and safety. These include the
biological and health sciences, economics, engineering, in-
dustrial relations, management, and law. Therefore, training
in OHP should cut across academic departments. This may be
accomplished by establishing collaborative arrangements
with other departments or institutions so that students can
take courses in safety engineering, occupational safety and
health law, con”ict resolution, epidemiology, and human re-
sources management and policies.
Because the list of relevant topics is long, it is probably
unrealistic to expect any individual to be an expert in all pos-
sible areas. Rather, individuals need to have suf“cient aware-
ness of other disciplines so that they can recognize the need
to enlist team members with the appropriate knowledge.
They also should develop leadership skills and team-building
skills to manage the occupational safety and health function
in organizations. These skills are probably best developed
through internships and practica.
Formal training in OHP is just getting underway. Some
academic education in stress and occupational health has
been offered at the undergraduate level (e.g., at the United
States Air Force Academy). Courses at the master•s level
have been offered at several schools (e.g., University of