What humanitarian work psychology brings to occupational health psychology

Abstract

This paper introduces a newly emerged sub-discipline in work studies – Humanitarian Work Psychology (HWP) – to researchers and practitioners in Occupational Health Psychology (OHP). Focused initially on the eradication of working poverty, under the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), HWP has since its inception contributed to the health and well-being of marginalized workgroups globally. Until today, however, those contributions in HWP have not been integrated with OHP. Key strands in the connecting nexus include how to: (1) set living wages that protect occupational and thus wider public health; (2) tackle infectious diseases as occupational health hazards; (3) bring valuable and skilled informal work closer into the ambit of OHP; and perhaps the toughest challenge of all, help to (4) combat unfree work. OHP is a cross-cutting theme in all four, and we call for broaden-and-build training initiatives and greater supervisor awareness of links not only between HWP and OHP, but also with the wider social sciences and management disciplines including corporate social responsibility, human resources, and policy and public health.