Healthy working in inclusive companies - a study protocol of the GAIN project

Fabian Holzgreve; Bettina Bredereck; Christopher Heim; Britta Weber; Rolf Ellegast; David A Groneberg; Christian Gaum; Daniela Ohlendorf

doi:10.1186/s12995-023-00399-x

Healthy working in inclusive companies - a study protocol of the GAIN project

J Occup Med Toxicol. 2023 Dec 15;18(1):30. doi: 10.1186/s12995-023-00399-x.

Authors

Fabian Holzgreve¹, Bettina Bredereck², Christopher Heim², Britta Weber³, Rolf Ellegast³, David A Groneberg⁴, Christian Gaum^#⁵, Daniela Ohlendorf^#⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, Building 9a, 60596, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. holzgreve@med.uni-frankfurt.de.
² Department of Psychology and Sports Sciences, Institute of Sport Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
³ Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA), Sankt Augustin, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Theodor-Stern-Kai 7, Building 9a, 60596, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
⁵ Faculty of Sports Sciences, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: The research project GAIN (working healthy in inclusion companies) deals with the topics of health and work in inclusive companies. Due to a great need for research on (occupational) health (e.g. physical and mental health status) and workplace design in companies employing people with disabilities, this project pursues the primary goal of generating information for the development and implementation of health-preserving measures within the framework of occupational health and safety, and risk assessment, for employees with and without impairments in inclusive companies.

Methods: Within the framework of the project, the employees of three inclusive companies will be examined with the help of an interdisciplinary and triangulative approach. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, specific physical workloads and hazards will be investigated by means of baseline screening methods and measurement techniques, specifically among employees with physical disabilities and impairments. In the statistical analysis, descriptive methods will be used to record the current state, while inferential statistical methods will be used to evaluate health maintenance measures. Inferential statistics for continuous data with confidence intervals based on the statistical parametric mapping (SPM) method will also be performed. The significance level will be set at 5%. Qualitative methods will be used to analyse structures and working conditions within the companies, with particular attention to the specific construction of the relationship between work, health and disability.

Conclusions: The structures in inclusion companies must be specifically designed to support and promote the understanding of work and health in relation to the idea of one's own body, its positioning in space and its performance. These characteristics are to be identified in the course of the project and bundled into best-practice recommendations. Furthermore, it is the aim of the research project to derive recommendations for action at its conclusion and to present further advice for the promotion of health in inclusive companies.

Keywords: Ergonomic risk assessment; Inertial motion capture; Inertial motion units; People with disabilities; Social firms; Workloads; Workplace design; Workplace health promotion.