Analyzing Occupational Safety Managers’ and Representatives’ Assessments of Collaboration With Occupational Health Care

Background: Collaboration between occupational safety (OS) and occupational health care (OHC) is essential for workplace health and safety, yet the experiences of OS actors have been less studied. Objective: To examine OS managers’ and representatives’ experiences of collaboration with OHC and identify related factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Finland via an online survey in March–April 2025. A total of 222 OS managers and 364 OS representatives responded to a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using non-parametric methods. Group differences were examined with the Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to explore associations between background variables and attitude statements related to perceived seamless collaboration. Results: OS managers rated the collaboration as more seamless than OS representatives (mean 7.76 vs. 7.17; p < .001), and more often gave it an excellent rating (39% vs. 22%). Seamless collaboration was particularly associated with the OHC agreement’s comprehensiveness, OS experience, and digital tools. The strongest associations were found for OHC participation in OS activities ( r = .78) and availability of workload data ( r = .77). Conclusions: The availability of information related to workload factors and the participation of OHC in workplace OS activities are particularly important for a positive experience of collaboration. Seamless collaboration with OHC also requires clear, jointly agreed procedures. Application to Practice: OHC should strengthen its collaboration with OS by clearly identifying and communicating workload and resource factors in the work environment, in order to effectively and impactfully target development measures.