Occupational Risk Factors

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Occupational Risk Factors

• A Social Approach to Healthcare

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Human Occupation Health

• Ann Wilcock is an occupational therapist and
  professor of occupational science and therapy at
  Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, with a
  PhD in Public Health
• She is recognized as an expert in the role of
  human occupation as a determinant of health

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Health Occupation

• Wilcock proposes that health, as originally
  defined by WHO, is achievable by participation in
  occupations, a fundamental mechanism for
  realizing aspirations, satisfying needs and
  coping with ones environment (Wilcock, p. 149,
  2005).

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Goals for Well-Being

• Ann Wilcock has identified two over-arching goals
  regarding the development of well-being for
  consumers and OTs role 2005).
• 1.To enhance and enrich physical, social, mental,
  emotional, intellectual, and vocational
  capacities among clients and consumers
• 2. To utilize wide-ranging, age appropriate, and
  balanced occupations for all people

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Role of OT Health Promotion(Wilcock)

• Assume the role as health agents that enable,
  advocate, and mediate for consumers
• Create supportive environments that include safe
  and satisfying characteristics as defined by
  inhabitants
• Empower communities to take ownership and
  responsible action for their own advancement
• Promote the personal skills and potential of all
  consumers in a holistic manner
• Research the impact of occupation on health and
  subsequently enlisting and educating the role of
  occupation among health services

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Public Health

• Public health may be defined as the process of
  mobilizing local, state, national, and
  international resources to ensure the conditions
  in which people can be healthy (Detels
  Breslow, 1997, p. 3)

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Public Health

• The primary source and fundamental science is
  epidemiology or the study and distribution,
  frequencies, and determinants of disease, injury,
  and disability in human populations
• Such statistics include reports on incidence,
  which is the number of new cases of disease,
  injury, or disability within a specified time
  frame and prevalence, which is the total number
  of cases of disease, injury, or disability in a
  community, city, state, or nation existing at one
  point in time

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Occupational Factors Ill Health

• Wilcock (1998) proposes that certain occupational
  factors can lead to ill health, disease,
  disability, and death. She identifies
  occupational risk factors as 1) occupational
  imbalance, 2) occupational deprivation, and 3)
  occupational alienation.

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Stress Health

• In accordance with the Better Health Commissions
  view of the Social Determinants of Health (1986),
  Wilcock has postulated that stress is created
  from experiencing any of these 3 stated risk
  factors

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Occupational Imbalance

• There is an innate tendency within each of us to
  have ones needs met (Maslow). Persons experience
  a sense of health and well-being when their
  physiological, sleep, mental, and social needs
  are filled. Imbalance is a state that occurs
  because peoples engagement in occupation fails
  to meet their unique physical, social, mental or
  rest needs. There is insufficient time for their
  own occupational interests and growth and the
  meeting of expectations of family, social, and
  community commitments (p. 138).
• How do OTs assess a client for occupational
  imbalance according to the Framework document?

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Occupational Deprivation

• Defined as the influence of an external agency
  or circumstance that keeps a person from
  acquiring, using, or enjoying something (p.
  145). External agencies or circumstances may
  consist of technology, lack of employment,
  poverty, policies, limited social services, and
  education systems.
• Example Failure to Thrive syndrome
• Other examples?

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Occupational Alienation

• Alienation can result when a persons activity is
  not in natural accordance with our humanity.
  Possible sources include economic, social,
  spiritual, technological activities that create
  an unnatural shift to human behavior and life
  patterns.
• Example - our turbulent time of information
  technology and overload. Think about how many
  forms of communication you use within one day.
  There is direct and indirect contact such as face
  to face encounters, voice mail, e-mail, instant
  messaging, text messaging, etc. How many PIN
  numbers and different passwords do you have for
  identity correspondence? All of this information
  can create overload and stress as we unnaturally
  try to multi-task, communicate faster, or
  retrieve and return messages that occurred when
  we were busy doing something else. There is a
  marked urge to acquire more and more material
  wealth as a means to acquire happiness.

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What do the experts say?

• In summary, Christiansen and Wilcock both profess
  that the health conditions of this millennium are
  related in part to the imbalance created within
  social contexts and the inadvertent application
  of traditional medical model practice for
  predominantly social conditions. They advocate
  for the profession of occupational therapy to
  take heed and pro-actively establish a role in
  the management of these health concerns. They
  strongly encourage that we embrace the philosophy
  of social science and social health models to
  understand, research, and identify evidence based
  interventions that promote health and well-being.

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Resource

• Cole Tufano, 2008, Chapter 5