Peter Y. Chen
Department of Psychology Colorado State University USA
Yueng-Hsiang Huang
Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety USA
Sarah DeArmond
Department of Psychology Colorado State University USA
To address ways of reducing human and financial losses due to occupational stress, illness, and injuries, occupational health psychology (OHP) has emerged over the past several decades as a specialty within psychology. Its goals are to understand and improve the quality of work life and to build healthy work places. OHP is not simply a discipline merged from industrial/organization (IO) psychology and health psychology. Instead, it is an interdisciplinary specialty which blends different types of psychology (e.g., IO, health, clinical, cognitive) with other occupational health disciplines (e.g., ergonomics, epidemiology, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine). In the current paper, we first present the historical roots of OHP, followed by its definition, a survey of OHP research and practices, and an explanation of the role of psychologists in OHP. In addition, the training programs in North America and Europe and different OHP communities are briefly described. Finally, future challenges for OHP as a field are discussed.
Keywords: occupational health psychology, safety and health, stress