Integrating Occupational Health and Safety and Health Promotion: A Qualitative Study in Australia

ABSTRACT Issue Addressed Growing evidence supports integrating occupational health and safety (OHS) and workplace health promotion (WHP) to enhance worker health, safety and wellbeing. This study aimed to explore in Australia: (1) the reasons for implementing OHS and WHP separately or concurrently/jointly; and (2) potential preferences and implementation contexts of integrated OHS‐WHP approaches. Methods This qualitative study involved focus groups ( n  = 3) and individual interviews ( n  = 40) with 47 OHS professionals, health promotion (HP) professionals, occupational health professionals and employers in Australia. Data were collected between October 2024 and March 2025. A thematic inductive analysis was employed. Results Several important insights include: (1) knowledge and attitudes of professionals towards OHS or WHP, particularly regarding OHS professionals' limited understanding of WHP and HP professionals' difficulties with OHS terminology; (2) reasons for inadequate integration implementation, including scarce WHP implementation, invisible WHP benefits, poor WHP evaluation, differing views of OHS professionals about WHP, debate about worker health and WHP quality and implementation issues; (3) trends and examples of integration, often motivated by factors like COVID‐19 and occurring more successfully in large organisations, though often hindered by departmental siloing; and (4) roles, attitudes and knowledge of employers, with varying support for integration across management levels and organisational sizes. Conclusions Limited implementation of integrated OHS‐WHP approaches in Australia stems from lack of policy emphases, professional knowledge gaps, and WHP implementation and evaluation concerns. So What? Urgent educational opportunities for employers and OHS professionals are needed to foster a holistic consideration of worker health and wellbeing, encouraging meaningful collaboration with health professionals and applying systems thinking to contemporary WHP.