Skip to main content
Knowledge4Policy
KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Knowledge Gateway

A reference point for public health policy makers with reliable, independent and up-to date information on topics related to promotion of health and well-being.

Page | Last updated: 07 May 2021

Implemented policies related to work-related stress prevention

Health Promotion Knowledge Gateway

Examples of implemented policies directly or indirectly related to work-related stress prevention

Enable or guide choice by changing the default a
EU Framework Directive (89/391/EEC)  on Safety and Health at Work from 1989 and subsequent amendments
  • Creates a legal obligation on employers to protect their workers by avoiding, evaluating and combatting risks to their safety and health. It includes psychosocial risks in the workplace that can cause or contribute to stress or mental health problems. National transpositions of this Directive vary across EU Member States, in relation to work-related stress prevention. In Denmark, Finland, Greece and Sweden psychosocial risks are specifically mentioned in the national legislation, and in Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Portugal and the United Kingdom psychosocial risk assessments are required. Austria and Belgium advocate for the involvement of a psychosocial risk expert in worksite health and safety planning.
ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health (1981), recommendations No. 155  and No. 164 
  • Binding  regulation-setting standards referring to prevention of harmful physical or mental stress due to conditions of work.
Swedish Work Environment Act 2015
  • The Swedish Work Environment Act clearly states that employers are obliged to prevent psychological health problems just like they are obliged to prevent accidents and physical illness. The provisions have been developed in consultation with the labour market partners and have a focus on preventive work environment management. An overall provision is that the employer must ensure that managers and supervisors have knowledge of how to prevent and manage an unhealthy workload and how to prevent and manage victimisation. Provisions foresee measures such as having organisation’s objectives on promoting health and increasing the ability to counteract ill health, checking if resources are adapted to the demands of work, counteracting scheduling of working hours leading to ill-health among the workers and conditions that could give rise to victimisation.
Denmark, Norway and Iceland Working Environmental Acts (1977 and revisions, 1989, 2003 and 2004). 
  • Those legislations explicitly recognise psychosocial risks at work and particularly dangerous or physically or mentally highly stressful by decree. In Iceland, employers are required to carry out systematic preventive measures and assessment of psychosocial risks and to implement provisions against bullying and other inappropriate behaviour
United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive 2000
  • “Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999” places a duty on employers to carry out risk assessments, ensure the implementation of necessary measures, appoint competent people and arrange for appropriate information and training. Alongside, guidance on the regulations and an approved Code of Practice were issued, with the latter being a quasi-regulatory approach that requires more formal compliance than adhering to guidance. If employers are prosecuted for a breach of health and safety law, and it is proven that they have not followed the relevant provisions of the approved Code of Practice, a court can find them at fault unless they can show that they have complied with the law in some other way.

Provide informationa
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work 2014-2015 
  • Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress campaign provided support and guidance for workers and employers in managing work related stress and psychosocial risk, and promoted the use of practical, user friendly tools to facilitate this,
  • An e-guide has been designed to provide guidance to enterprises that start approaching psychosocial risks in the work place. It includes simple explanations on work-related stress and its risk, possible effects on business and workers and practical examples on how to prevent and deal with work-related stress

aBased on the Nuffield intervention ladder as described in Public Health: ethical issues from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Nov2007