Occupational Health Psychology - Historical Overview

Historical Overview

The Early forerunners. A number of individuals contributed to the foundation of OHP. The Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century prompted thinkers to concern themselves with the nature of work. For example, Marx's theory of alienation of the industrial worker has been influential. Taylor's (1911) Principles of Scientific Management and Mayo’s research in the late 1920s and early 1930s on workers at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant helped to inject work and its impact on workers into the subject matter psychology addresses. Jahoda, Lazarsfeld, and Ziesel's (1971/1932) pioneering research on the impact of unemployment on a small Austrian community also contributed to the development of OHP.

From the years after World War II to the 1970s. The creation in 1948 of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan was an important stimulus to research on work and health because of the institute's interdisciplinary character. Many psychological and sociological studies of work were initiated by researchers at the ISR. Research by Trist and Bamforth (1951) that showed that the reduction in autonomy that accompanied organizational changes in English mining operations affected worker morale was very influential in later OHP circles. A study by Gardell (1971) that examined the impact of work organization on mental health in Swedish pulp and paper mill workers and engineers was also influential. It was one of the few studies to operationalize the concept of worker alienation.

Groundbreaking research by Kasl and Cobb (1971), which documented the impact of unemployment on blood pressure, influenced the emergence of OHP in at least two respects. First, Kasl and Cobb's study showed that a work-related psychosocial stressor can affect a physical condition. Second, the study demonstrated that rigorous methods can be applied to research on the impact of psychosocial work factors on an aspect of health.

From the 1980s to the present. In 1985 and 1986, the term occupational health psychology first appeared in print when Robert Feldman and George Everly, Jr. used the expression in book chapters devoted to integrating the fields of occupational health and psychology (in his original paper, Everly advocated for psychologists' role in health promotion in the workplace; although OHP includes health promotion, the field is much broader). The field of OHP advanced when the journal Work & Stress was founded in 1987. In 1990, Raymond, Wood, and Patrick, in a watershed article published in the American Psychologist, articulated the idea that a goal for psychology should be to create healthy workplaces. In 1990, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) jointly organized the first international Work, Stress, and Health conference in Washington, DC.

In 1996, the International Commission on Occupational Health created its scientific committee on Work Organisation and Psychosocial Factors. In 1998, ICOH-WOPS organized its first international conference in Copenhagen. The second conference was held in Okayama, Japan in 2005, after which ICOH-WOPS adopted a two- to three-year cycle for its conference schedule. In 1999, the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology (EA-OHP) was established. The EA-OHP initiated its own series of international conferences on the psychological aspects of work and health. In 2005, the Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP) was founded in the United States. Work & Stress became associated with the EA-OHP. The JOHP became associated with the SOHP although it is still published by APA. In 2008, SOHP became a full partner with APA and NIOSH in organizing the, by then, biennial Work, Stress, and Health conferences. Also in 2008, the EA-OHP and the SOHP began to coordinate activities (e.g., conference schedules).

For more details on the historical development of OHP, see Barling and Griffiths's (2010) fine overview of the history of the discipline.