Call for papers - Workplace safety and health

Guest Editors

Els Clays, PhD, Ghent University, Belgium
Subas Neupane, PhD, Tampere University, Finland
Karin Proper, PhD, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 6 January 2025

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection on Workplace safety and health, emphasizing the crucial role of safeguarding and promotion individuals' well-being in work settings. Acknowledging the significant time spent in workplaces and the broader impact of workplace injuries and illnesses, the Collection welcomes submissions on various topics, including risk factors for injuries, occupational hazards, psychosocial influences, ergonomic solutions, workplace health promotion interventions, emerging technologies, and disparities among vulnerable populations, aiming to explore innovative approaches, best practices, and challenges in ensuring worker safety and well-being across diverse industries and occupations.

New Content Item This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being and SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.

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Meet the Guest Editors

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Els Clays, PhD, Ghent University, Belgium

Dr Els Clays is a health sociologist and holds an associate professorship at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Belgium. She teaches courses in Statistics, Quantitative methodology, Epidemiology, Scientific paper writing and Health sociology within a range of Master programs at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr Clays is active in the Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases research unit, which is widely recognized for its groundbreaking research in the field of chronic disease prevention. She coordinates the research line focused on the health and wellbeing of employees in the workplace. Her research endeavors have encompassed a wide range of work-related risk factors and resources, investigating their antecedents, contextual factors and impact on various health outcomes.

Subas Neupane, PhD, Tampere University, Finland

Dr Subas Neupane leads the occupational health research team at the Unit of Health Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences at Tampere University. He is an occupational epidemiologist and worked as a senior lecturer at Tampere University. He is also affiliated to Finnish Institute of Occupational Health as visiting research fellow. He has long experience on working with longitudinal datasets with long follow-up, registers-based data, multi-cohort, multi-country data and advanced statistical modelling. Dr Neupane currently leads a project on the individual participants data meta-analysis of multi-cohort study (funded by Research Council Finland), data mining in health cohort data, work, health and retirement as well as work-related diseases burden.

Karin Proper, PhD, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands

Prof Karin Proper works at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and is a professor by of Health Promotion and Policy in the Occupational context at Amsterdam UMC. She is also Chief Science Officer at the RIVM. Prof Proper has a background in human movement sciences and epidemiology with a specialization in work & health. Since her graduation, her research has focused on the health of the working population. Prof Proper works as an expert and project leader on various studies on work & health, from prevention at the workplace to occupational healthcare. Some specific topics of her research are: lifestyle behavior (in particular physical activity and sitting) among workers, workplace health promotion intervention, night work, implementation and evaluation studies, informal care and work. She has authored numerous scientific articles in internationally peer-reviewed journals.

About the Collection

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection on Workplace safety and health.

The promotion of workplace safety and health is integral to protecting the well-being of individuals and communities, given the significant amount of time individuals spend in various work environments. Workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities have far-reaching implications beyond the individual level, impacting families, communities, and the broader economy.

Advancing our collective understanding of workplace safety and health facilitates the development of evidence-based interventions, policies, and practices aimed at fostering safer and healthy working conditions and reducing the burden of workplace-related injuries and illnesses. Interdisciplinary research collaborations have played a crucial role in identifying workplace risk factors and implementing effective interventions. For example, studies on psychosocial factors have led to interventions targeting stress, burnout, and workplace violence, while advances in ergonomics have improved work environments, reducing the risk of injuries.

This Collection aims to explore innovative approaches, best practices, and challenges in ensuring the safety and health of workers across various industries and occupations. We welcome contributions that address the following subtopics:

Risk factors and prevention strategies for work-related health problems
Occupational hazards and their impact on worker health
Emerging health risks at the workplace
Psychosocial factors influencing workplace well-being
Ergonomics solutions for safer and healthier work environments
Emerging technologies for monitoring and managing workplace hazards
Innovative (technological) interventions to promote workers' health
Disparities in workplace safety and health among vulnerable populations

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being and SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.

Image credit: Pitchayaarch / stock.adobe.com

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Workplace safety and health" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.