Staffing of Occupational Physicians and Occupational Health Nurses, and Coordinating Structure in Relation to the Health and Productivity Management Implementation Score: A Company Panel Study in Japan.

OBJECTIVE

To examine within-company associations of occupational health professional staffing and coordinating structure for Health and Productivity Management (HPM) promotion with the HPM implementation score.

METHODS

We analyzed an unbalanced panel of 3,966 companies (9,440 company-year observations) for fiscal years 2021-2023. The outcome was a relative HPM implementation score standardized among responding companies. Company fixed-effects models included staffing [ln(n + 1)], coordinating structure, fiscal-year fixed effects, ln-transformed employee count, and company-clustered robust standard errors.

RESULTS

Occupational health professional staffing was positively associated with the HPM implementation score (coefficient, 1.028, 95% CI 0.540-1.515, P<0.001). Other coordinating-structure categories had lower scores than an independent dedicated department (coefficients, -0.813 to -5.314; 95% CIs, -1.418 to -0.208 and -6.884 to -3.745; all P ≤ 0.008).

CONCLUSIONS

Both factors were associated with HPM implementation within companies over time.