1. Chapter 6 Contribution of Occupation to Health and Well-Being
Hocking

2. Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
Describe, in occupational terms, what being healthy means and how that relates to the Ottawa Charter and Healthy People 2020.
Explore ways that occupation contributes to the health and well-being of all people, in terms of meeting biological needs, developing skills and using capacities.
Drawing on the international literature, evaluate how occupation influences men’s and women’s health differently, and some workers but not others.

3. Learning Objectives (cont.)
4. Describe positive and negative health impacts of people’s overall pattern of occupation.
Analyze how well-being might be influenced by a person’s physical, social, and attitudinal environment.
Evaluate the ways in which people’s occupations might be detrimental to health and well-being.
Analyze how having an impairment might affect well- being, taking environmental barriers into account

4. Occupation, Health and Well-being
Biomedical views of health focus on the absence of disease
People view themselves as healthy if they:
Can engage in their usual occupations
Have an active lifestyle
Can do the things that are important to them
Health is created through physical capacities, personal and social resources

5. Well-Being Well-being is a subjective evaluation of:
Physical health - feeling fit and well
Mental health - self-esteem, happiness, a sense of satisfaction and purpose
Social health - sense of belonging and community
Spiritual well-being, connection to land and the health of the local & global ecosystem
Well-being can co-exist with a health condition
(health conditions may pose a barrier to occupation)

6. How Occupation Contributes to Health
Our survival depends on what we do.
Biological needs are met through systems that:
Warn of problems: Threats to physiological states (being hot/cold or hungry/thirsty)
Protect and prevent: Skills required to solve problems and plan (interaction with others, livelihood, etc.)
Prompt and reward: Higher levels of well-being (sense of purpose, satisfaction, and fulfillment)

7. Developing Skills and Exercising Capacities
To survive people develop skills that support health
Such as:
Cooking food;
Making clothes;
Finding a home;
Forming relationships;
Reading, etc.
Exercise their physical, mental and social capacities

8. Evidence Strong evidence supports being active:
Promotes skeletal development and bone mass
Decreases cardiovascular and mental illness
Maintains healthy weight, strength, agility
Maintains cognitive functioning, psychological health and social networks
Men’s health is supported by passive involvement in sport and cultural activities
Women’s health is supported by active involvement in cultural activities

9. Health and Patterns of Occupation
Having a rest enhances health and memory of recent experiences
Result: better learning
Taking a break in a natural environment is restorative
Perceptual processing speed is restored by a nap
Passive lifestyles decrease physical activity, undermining health
Fast paced lifestyles appear incompatible with well-being
Disrupted occupational routines are associated with stress

10. Occupations Posing Health Threats
Useful and rewarding work promotes health
Low quality, insecure, unsafe work environments can harm people
Lack of meaningful occupation may be associated with lower levels of well-being

11. Occupations Posing Health Threats (continued)
Some occupations have inherent health risks:
300,000 skateboarding injuries in 2002
Driving a motor vehicle resulted in 15.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 1998
Occupations involving substance abuse are detrimental to health

12. Barriers to Occupation - Impairments
Impairments can impede participation in occupation. Examples:
Low back pain – 2nd leading cause of lost work time;
Visual deficits can impede driving, sports participation, and use of power tools
Diminishing occupational capacity can be experienced as:
loss of identity, variety in life, and increasing dependence
Diminished occupation can be frustrating
represent the loss of an envisioned future

13. Barriers to Occupation
Health conditions can create burdensome occupational demands
Loss of pleasure in an occupation
Unsafe or sterile environments can be barriers to healthy occupation
Often affecting older and people of low socioeconomic status
Cultural mores about acceptable behavior

14. Barriers to Occupation
Disability barriers also inhibit occupation. Such as:
Social stigma, inaccessible buildings, poverty and lower educational attainment
Other barriers that negatively affect well-being:
Racism, homelessness, and displacement

15. Structuring Occupation to Enhance Well-Being
People are resourceful in structuring occupations to enhance well-being
For example, people recovering from mental illness report a progression from a disintegrated experience of doing and being through different levels of occupational engagement characterized as half-doing, engaged doing, and absorbed doing