Social health protection and occupational health services both aim at addressing some of the social and environmental determinants of health: though their scopes differ, they share a common public health objective in terms of promoting good health, preventing (occupational) injuries and diseases, supporting access to health care, guaranteeing income security throughout sickness and injury, and facilitating rehabilitation.
Social health protection and occupational health services can play a core role contributing to the objectives of Universal Health Coverage, but this continues to be undermined by the existence of significant coverage gaps. Similarly, while robust coordination between social health protection systems and occupational health services has potential to strengthen their respective contributions to health outcomes, there is a dearth of evidence about the prevalence of linkages between the institutions regulating and administering each system, and the challenges and opportunities to strengthened collaboration.
The Universal Social Protection (SOCPRO) and the Occupational Safety and Health and Working Environment (OSHE) Departments are jointly implementing two projects aimed at researching then designing inter-sectoral approaches to strengthen safety and health and access to social protection, catalysing on the respective expertise within both departments.
- Output 1: A scoping review aiming to document existing linkages between social protection and occupationalhealth services globally and identify promising practices in order to be able to inform policy making aroundinter-sectoral approaches. The publication of the scoping review is forthcoming.
- Output 2: Three empirical case studies in Colombia, Madagascar and Vietnam exploring each country’sSHP and OHS architecture, the existing level of coordination between the two and potential forstrengthening integration between OHS and SHP. The publication of the three country case studies isforthcoming.
- Output 3: A final synthesis report pulling together the main findings and lessons from the precedingoutputs and discussing their implications for priority and standard setting at a global level, andcoordination efforts at global and national levels. The synthesis report can be found here.
Under the “Improving occupational safety and health (OSH) and access to social protection for workers in the agri-business sectors” project funded by ENI S.p.a (see project page here), the ILO aims to identify and address the bottlenecks to improved safety and health and access to social health protection for farmers and farm workers in the castor bean value chain in Kenya and in the rubber seed value chain in Ivory Coast, where the donor operates. Following a preliminary assessment of the constraints for occupational safety and health improvement and access to social health protection, the Departments designed joint interventions that aim to foster greater coordination between social protection and occupational health services, and strengthen capacities of employer and worker organizations, as well as actors within the respective value chains, to improve OSH practices and enhance social protection coverage.