Estimating the potential reduction in future sickness absence from optimizing group-level psychosocial work characteristics: a prospective, multicenter cohort study in German industrial settings

BACKGROUND: Absence from work due to sickness impairs organizational productivity and performance. Even in organizations with perfect work conditions, some inevitable baseline sickness absence exists amongst working populations. The excess sickness absence observed above this baseline rate has become the focus of traditional health promotion efforts, addressing preventable physical illness, health behavior and mental health at the personal level. However, a health and safety approach following the TOP-rule would consider work-group psychosocial work characteristics as a potential risk factor amenable to organizational measures. To date, there is a scarcity of studies relating psychosocial work characteristics to possible reduction of excess sickness-absence rates. METHODS: We aimed to estimate the potentially avoidable excess fraction of absence attributable to work-group psychosocial characteristics. We considered work-group averaged perception of psychosocial work characteristics as a proxy to the methodologically elusive objective assessment of organizational characteristics. Participants were recruited from multiple sites of a German automotive manufacturer with individuals nested within work groups. We predicted 12-month follow-up work-group sickness absence rates using data from a baseline comprehensive health examination assessing work characteristics, health behavior, and biomedical risk factors. We considered the quartile of work-groups yielding favorable psychosocial work characteristics as a realistic existing benchmark. Using the population attributable fraction method we estimated the potentially amenable sickness absence from improving work-group psychosocial characteristics. RESULTS: Data from 3992 eligible participants from 29 work groups were analyzed (39% participation rate, average age 41.4 years (SD = 10.3 years), 89.9% males and 49% manual workers.). Work-group absence rates at follow up varied from 2.1 to 8.9% (mean 5.1%, 11.7 missed days). A prediction model of seven psychosocial work characteristics at the work group level explained 70% of the variance of future absence rates. The estimated reduction from improving psychosocial work characteristics to the benchmark level amounted to 32% of all sickness absence, compared to a 31% reduction from eliminating health behavioral and medical risk factors to the benchmark target. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosocial characteristics at the work-group level account for a relevant proportion of all sickness absence. Health promotion interventions should therefore address psychosocial characteristics at the work group level. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12995-020-00284-x.