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What determines the size of occupational health services in UK universities?

Venables, Katherine M. and Allender, Steven 2007, What determines the size of occupational health services in UK universities?, Occupational medicine, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 210-213.


Title What determines the size of occupational health services in UK universities?
Author(s) Venables, Katherine M.
Allender, Steven
Journal name Occupational medicine
Volume number 57
Issue number 3
Start page 210
End page 213
Publisher Oxford University Press
Place of publication Oxford, England
Publication date 2007-01-16
ISSN 0962-7480
1471-8405
Keyword(s) Health services research
occupational health services
universities
Summary Background There is wide, largely unexplained, variation in occupational health (OH) provision between UK employers.

Aim To explain the variation in OH provision across the UK university sector.

Methods Analyses of data from a survey of university OH services and from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. The outcome variable was clinical (doctor + nurse) staffing of the university's OH service. The explanatory variables examined were university size, income, research activity score and presence or absence of academic disciplines categorized by an expert panel as requiring a high level of OH provision.

Results All 117 UK universities were included and 93 (79%) responded; with exclusions and incomplete data, between 80 and 89 were included in analyses. There was wide variation in clinical OH staffing (range 0–8.4 full-time equivalents). Number of university staff explained 34% of the variation in OH staffing. After adjusting for other factors, neither the research activity nor the presence of high-needs disciplines appeared to be factors currently used by employers to determine their investment in OH.

Conclusions Government or other guidelines for university employers should take organizational size into account. Employers may need guidance on how to provide OH services proportionate to specific occupational hazards or other OH needs.
Language eng
Field of Research 111708 Health and Community Services
HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
Copyright notice ©2007, The Author
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30020491

Document type: Journal Article
Collection: Public Health Research, Evaluation, and Policy Cluster
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