The Work, Health and Wellbeing program aspires to a vision of healthy and sustainable work for all. We seek to advance the scientific and public understanding of work as a social determinant of health, and to help shape policy and practice to better protect people from the harmful effects of work, while fostering its health-promoting qualities. We believe that everyone deserves — at a minimum — to have their dignity, health and wellbeing protected at work, and ideally that work would also promote these qualities.

Healthy work promotes physical, mental, economic and social wellbeing and in turn the health and wellbeing of families, communities and societies.

Healthy workers are also more productive and yet, poor working conditions continue to be a major contributor to illness and injury burdens, as well as to health inequalities in Australia and around the world.

Our main research areas are:

  • Social epidemiology
  • Intervention development, implementation, and evaluation
  • Mental health
  • Health equity
  • Occupational health & safety
  • Health promotion
  • Psychosocial working conditions, or job stressors

Who we work with

Research Collaborators

WHW collaborates widely both within Australia and internationally. Examples include:

University of Melbourne

Blackdog Institute & University of New South Wales

Stockholm University, Sweden

Danish National Research Institute on the Work Environment

Research Partners: Government, NGOs, Industry

WHW regularly partners with policymakers, practitioners, and other non-researchers in government, industry, and elsewhere. For examples:

MATES in Construction. https://mates.org.au/

Sample publications

Who Uses Our Research

WHW research has been adapted into and/or cited in various policies, practice guidelines, and other resources. For examples:

Prof LaMontagne’s ‘integrated approach to workplace mental health’ has been applied in:

Australian Senate Select Committee on Job Security’s 2022 Report of the Australian Senate Select Committee on Job Security Victorian Health Promotion Foundation’s RE-IMAGINING LIFE & HEALTH PANEL DISCUSSION SERIES:

Our people

Professor Anthony LaMontagne
Read more

Publications

Blomqvist S, Robin SH, Virtanen M, LaMontagne AD, Hanson LM (June 2023) Job loss and job instability during the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of depression and anxiety among Swedish employees. SSM – Population Health 22 (101429) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101424a

King T, Maheen H, Taouk Y, LaMontagne AD (2023 March 6): Suicide in the Australian mining industry: assessment of rates using 19 years of Coronial data. Safety & Health at Work. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2023.03.003

King T, Alfonzo LF, Batterham P, Mackinnon A, Lockwood C, Harvey S, Kelly B, Lingard H, Cox L, LaMontagne AD (2023 February 9): A blended face-to-face and smartphone intervention to improve suicide prevention literacy and help-seeking intentions among construction workers: a randomised controlled trial. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. doi: 10.1007/s00127-023-02429-9

King T, Maheen H, Taouk Y, LaMontagne AD (2023 January 30): Precarious work and the COVID-19 pandemic: the need for a gender equality lens, BMJ 380: e072872. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-072872

LaMontagne AD, Cox LL, Lockwood C, Mackinnon A,5, Hall N, Brimelow R, Le L, Mihalopoulos C, King T (2022 December 19): Evaluation of a workplace suicide prevention program in the Australian manufacturing industry: protocol for a cluster-randomised trial of MATES in manufacturing. BMC Psychiatry 22(1):79 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04464-3. Open access https://rdcu.be/c1Vmf

Maheen H, Taouk Y, LaMontagne AD, King T (2022 November 23): Suicide trends among Australian construction workers during years 2001-2019. Scientific Reports. Open access at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24575-x.pdf

Taouk Y, King T, Ride J, LaMontagne AD (2022 July 8): COVID-19: An opportunity to combat the burden of poor mental health in Australian workplaces. The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100537

Åberg M, Staats E, Robertson J, Schiöler L, Torén K, LaMontagne AD, Söderberg M, Waern M, Nyberg J (2022): Psychosocial job stressors and risk of suicidal behaviour– an observational study among Swedish men, Scandinavian J Work Environment & Health 48(6):435-445. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.4039

Blomqvist S, Virtanen M, LaMontagne AD, Magnusson Hanson LL (2022): Perceived job insecurity and risk of suicide and suicide attempts: a study of men and women in the Swedish working population, Scand J Work Environ Health 48(4):293-301 doi:10.5271/sjweh.4015.

Gayed A, Kugenthiran N, LaMontagne AD, Christensen H, Glozier N, Harvey SB (2021): Can an online mental health training program improve physician supervisors’ behaviour towards trainees? Intern Med J, doi: 10.1111/imj.15207. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imj.15207

King TL, LaMontagne AD (2021): COVID-19 and suicide risk in the construction sector: preparing for a perfect storm, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 49(7):774-778. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494821993707

LaMontagne AD, Too LS, Punnett L, Milner AJ (2021): Changes in job security and mental health: an analysis of 14 annual waves of an Australian working-population panel survey, American J Epidemiology; 190 (2):207–215, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaa038 with accompanying

Invited Commentary:

Sarah Burgard, Invited Commentary: linking job security and mental health—challenges and future directions, American J Epidemiology, Volume 190, Issue 2, February 2021, Pages 216–219, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaa039