Name of Faculty Sponsor
Kristin Horan
Faculty Sponsor Email
khoran1@kennesaw.edu
Publication Date
6-2025
Abstract
Participation is an essential component in workplace health and safety programs or interventions. While those who conduct interventions often report participation rates among the overall organization, it could be useful to compare participants to industry statistics, given that health and safety risks can diverge widely among industries. Research students from Kennesaw State University analyzed a sample of published papers that focus on occupational health psychology interventions. This narrative review analyzed existing studies to look for similarities or dissimilarities between a sample of intervention participants and employees of their industry as a whole. The students considered demographic, socioeconomic, job-related, and health-related characteristics. Incomplete reporting of sample characteristics was found to be common among the articles coded but was most common for demographic characteristics (comparison was possible in approximately 86% of samples). Samples tended to be similar to industry characteristics in age (65% coded as similar when comparison was possible), dissimilar in terms of gender, with trends of male and female overrepresentation both being common (42% and 38%, respectively when a comparison was possible) and dissimilar in terms of race, which samples being more White/Caucasian than the industry as a whole (66% when a comparison was possible). The findings of this study could encourage more complete reporting norms when describing the samples of workplace interventions, benefiting both research and practice.
Included in
Clinical and Medical Social Work Commons, Community Psychology Commons, Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons
