Towards improving workers' health by matching work and workers

From an occupational health perspective, the match between work and workers was the central topic in this thesis. The term ‘work’ was used to encompass a combination of physical, mental and psychosocial work demands. The term ‘workers’ represents the resources of workers, in terms of physical, psychological and social capacities, health status and age.
Studying the match between work and workers is essential for identifying highly demanding jobs requiring special requirements of the worker, and for identifying workers with specific health complaints, their associated impairments and desired adjustments. Identifying highly demanding jobs and work-related health complaints gives the opportunity to take preventive measures in the work situation in order to maintain workers’ health in their job, avoiding both increased risk of work-related complaints and an increasing burden of costs associated with health care, absenteeism and early retirement. The objective of this thesis was to gain knowledge on the match between work and workers in specific physically and mentally demanding work settings and specific worker populations (i.e. workers with disabilities and workers of different age groups).