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Occupational Health in Family Medicine: Practical Tools for Safer, Healthier Work

Kenji SAITO, Erica Tania DAVILLO, Elrey NAVARRO and Erwin FALLER

The workshop Occupational Health in Family Medicine: Practical Tools for Safer, Healthier Work is designed to strengthen the integration of occupational health principles into routine family practice and primary care. Set against the broader theme of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” it emphasizes the importance of enabling safe and autonomous work decisions, ensuring equitable access to preventive measures and accommodations, and fostering interprofessional collaboration under a One Health framework.The session’s objectives are to equip participants with the ability to define key occupational health concepts relevant to community health, apply a structured five‑minute work‑focused history within consultations, draft fit notes that highlight functional capacity and shared decision‑making, co‑develop practice policies for safe return‑to‑work and psychosocial risk reduction, and plan a 90‑day implementation strategy with measurable clinical, equity, and value‑on‑investment outcomes.Teaching methods are highly interactive, combining case vignettes, small‑group design sprints, and toolkit walkthroughs to ensure participants not only acquire knowledge but also co‑create practical tools adaptable to busy clinical workflows. The workshop schedule spans 60–90 minutes: an opening segment (00–10 minutes) frames occupational health in family medicine through evidence and definitions; case vignettes (10–30 minutes) explore common scenarios such as shift‑work sleep problems, musculoskeletal pain, anxiety, substance risk, and psychosocial hazards; small‑group design sprints (30–55 minutes) allow participants to draft scripts, fit note templates, and policy adjustments; report‑back and toolkit walkthrough (55–75 minutes) consolidate outputs into practical resources; and a closing segment (75–90 minutes) focuses on Q&A, commitment‑to‑change forms, and evaluation planning.Expected outcomes include enhanced clinical capacity to integrate occupational health into family medicine, improved patient autonomy through functional capacity notes, strengthened collaboration with employers and community resources, and measurable reductions in presenteeism and inequities in workplace health access.By the conclusion, participants will leave with a printable toolkit, a structured implementation checklist, and a clear evaluation plan, empowering them to embed a work dimension into their clinical practice, align with WONCA networks in prevention and quality, and advance humanistic, community‑oriented family medicine that supports safer, healthier work for all.