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Review
. 2021 Aug 11;18(16):8477.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18168477.

Leveraging Strategic Foresight to Advance Worker Safety, Health, and Well-Being

Jessica M K Streit  1 , Sarah A Felknor  2 , Nicole T Edwards  3 , John Howard  4
Affiliations
Review

Leveraging Strategic Foresight to Advance Worker Safety, Health, and Well-Being

Jessica M K Streit et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Attending to the ever-expanding list of factors impacting work, the workplace, and the workforce will require innovative methods and approaches for occupational safety and health (OSH) research and practice. This paper explores strategic foresight as a tool that can enhance OSH capacity to anticipate, and even shape, the future as it pertains to work. Equal parts science and art, strategic foresight includes the development and analysis of plausible alternative futures as inputs to strategic plans and actions. Here, we review several published foresight approaches and examples of work-related futures scenarios. We also present a working foresight framework tailored for OSH and offer recommendations for next steps to incorporate strategic foresight into research and practice in order to advance worker safety, health, and well-being.

Keywords: forecast; methods and approaches; occupational safety and health; scenario; strategic foresight; work-related future; worker well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Visual representation of Three-Horizon Foresight [43].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Foresight Framework for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). Adapted from the UH Foresight Framework [85,86].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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