256 Chapter 8 Organizational context: occupational health professionals and supervisors The results of this thesis showed that the recruitment of workers in a vulnerable position is difficult for OHPs. Therefore, OHPs should invest in alternative ways to reach this group for preventive interventions that aim to improve their health and sustainable employability. The discussion on recruitment and participation of workers in a vulnerable position in the methodological considerations provided several ideas that can be applied in practice. First, OHPs could collaborate with people at the workplaces itself, that are already (daily) in contact with workers and have built a relationship of trust with these workers (10). For instance, supervisors can put OHPs in contact with workers at risk for developing health problems and/or at risk to drop early out of the labor market. Another way to reach workers in a vulnerable position is by collaboration with professionals from outside the workplace, who are working in existing networks that already successfully reached the target group (15). For example, job coaches in municipal organizations, social workers in community centers or general practitioners. OHPs could also reach workers by making more use of periodic occupational health screenings, as they do not have any contact with most workers except when workers are on sick leave or with workers who were referred. However, OHPs do not always have sufficient time to discuss results following a health screening and support workers to improve their health and sustainable employability (35). For OHPs to preventively support workers in a vulnerable position requires a structural change in their duties and responsibilities in practice, as the results of this thesis showed that it is mainly focused on providing advice on return to work, leaving limited time available for preventive activities. A possible solution is delegating tasks to other health professionals, who have more time for preventive activities and could also provide advice for problems on other life domains than work. Professionals in the workplace who are according to privacy regulations allowed to discuss health related problems, such as occupational nurses or occupational social workers could perform these tasks. Moreover, OHPs could also work more together with a prevention officer, who can perform some of OHP’s preventive tasks (36). However, this thesis also confirmed that workers in a vulnerable position, may not always want to disclose health problems with a professional that is related to the workplace. Until now, literature on disclosing health problems mainly focused on the role of OPs and/or professionals in curative health care. Therefore, additional research is needed to gain more insight on how to change the perception of workers that OHPs work for the employer, and whether these perceptions differ between various types of OHPs. Another way to expand the preventive activities of OHPs in practice is by making prevention a more extensive component of the contracts between OHPs and employers, as the results of this thesis showed that prevention is often a limited
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