Ensuring Workers' Physical and Mental Health
Federal, state, and local governments can advance initiatives and policies that protect and promote worker’s physical and mental health. These strategies include strengthening requirements from the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), legislation that protects workers from violence and their right to seek help for their mental health, and removing stigmatizing mental health questions from licensing applications. Policies that support appropriate Workloads & Workflows are also critical for worker safety.
Note: Research examining the most effective policies is often limited. Where there is evidence, we try to provide it. In many cases, we provide spotlights of federal, state, or local policies and programs that can be adopted or adapted in other places.
Strengthen Occupational Safety and Health Policies
Governments can invest in federal, state, and local occupational safety policies and workplace violence initiatives that protect health workers.
Resources
Michaels and Wagner (2020) viewpoint on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Worker Safety During the COVID-19 Pandemic recommends government actions to strengthen OSHA standards and enforcement.
The American Nurses Association’s Workplace Violence website tracks states with laws requiring workplace violence prevention programs and laws designating penalties for assaults that include nurses. The ANA also advocates for OSHA to develop enforceable standards, as well as federal legislation to require OSHA to do so.
Beeber, et al.’s Five Urgent Steps To Address Violence Against Nurses In The Workplace highlights the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act, which has been introduced (but not passed) in every Congress since 2019. The bill would require employers in health care and social services agencies to implement comprehensive violence prevention plans and to carry out other activities or requirements to protect health workers.
The American College of Physicians’ Advocacy Toolkit: Addressing Rising Workplace Violence Against Physicians and Health Care Workers summarizes federal and state actions, including a link to the Network for Public Health Law tracked 35 states have criminal statutes for threatening or harassing public health officials.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Caring for Those Who Care: Guide for the Development and Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety Programmes offers recommendations and examples for national programs to strengthen occupational health and safety for health workers.
Spotlight
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has a Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work. The framework prioritizes anticipating and managing change, improving prevention, and increasing preparedness, and stress the need for effective enforcement, social dialogue, funding, awareness-raising, and data collection.
Support Workers' and Learners' Mental Health & Well-Being
Government plays a role in the creation and implementation of programs and policies to increase mental health access and decrease stigma. This includes:
- Enforcing the Mental Health Parity Act
- Removing stigmatizing mental health language from licensing applications
- Passing legislation to protect workers' right to access mental health care
Resources
The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation tracks state medical boards auditing and changing intrusive language from their licensure applications and provides
- A toolkit to Remove Intrusive Mental Health Questions from Licensure and Credentialing Applications
- Examples of state actions to support mental health access in Virginia, Arizona, Utah, and Illinois.
The Joint Commission issued clarification that it does not require organizations to inquire about a health worker’s history of mental health conditions or treatment and supports recommendations of other medical boards and professional associations to limit questions about mental health to “conditions that currently impair the clinicians’ ability to perform their job.”
The Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University report A Review of State Efforts to Enforce Mental Health Parity: Lessons for Policymakers and Regulators examines state policies and barriers to enforcing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and provides recommendations for states to streamline regulation and enhance surveillance, and for the federal government to enhance guidance and funding.
Recent federal efforts to prioritize mental health are outlined in President Biden’s Strategy to Address Our National Mental Health Crisis and the HHS Roadmap to Integrate Behavioral Health.
Spotlights
The U.S. Department of Labor is charged with enforcing the mental health parity. Their website provides resources for workers and families, as well as employers. Their 2022 Report to Congress summarizes their actions to implement and enforce mental health parity requirements and “sets the stage for what’s to come.” The DoL Building Mental Health-Friendly Workplaces webinar highlights the 4 A’s of a mental health-friendly workplace: Awareness, Accommodations, Assistance, and Access, and identifies incorporation of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as crucial.
Virginia established SafeHavenTM, which offers confidential peer coaching and mental health services to health professionals and students, and passed legislation to protect health workers seeking professional support from undue repercussions to their license.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has a webpage dedicated to mental health resources for health care workers experiencing stress, anxiety and trauma.
The European Commission’s 2021 Expert Panel Report Supporting Mental Health of Health Workforce and Other Essential Workers, provides recommendations on how organizations and the government can better support health workers. Government recommendations include advancing policies to protect and measure mental wellbeing, developing a handbook on how to prepare “mentally protective” workplaces, setting a specific research program, and others.
