Aspects Influencing Health in Office Work Environments: A Photovoice Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Office work is increasingly carried out outside conventional office settings, particularly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This highlights the need to identify specific aspects that influence health across different office work environments. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to: (1) identify aspects that office workers perceive as supporting or hindering their health in places where they performed office work; and (2) formulate novel questions about office work for future quantitative studies. METHODS In February 2021, we conducted a digitally distributed photovoice study in Sweden, in which 17 office workers from five companies took photos and provided written comments on what they perceived as supporting or hindering their health in places where they performed office work. For objective (1), we carried out both formal and exploratory qualitative analyses, as well as quantified the content of the photos and comments. For objective (2), we integrated findings from the photovoice study with items from the 2019 Swedish Work Environment Survey to develop new questions related to office work. RESULTS Of a total of 63 photos, 70% (44/63) were taken at home, 24% (15/63) in an office, and 6% (4/63) outdoors. The comments on photos taken at conventional office settings largely highlighted health-promoting aspects, while the interpretations of home office photos showed greater variability regarding their impact on health. We identified 9 aspects and categorized them into two groups: (1) Environmental perspective, including space, ergonomic, technical, and aesthetic–sensuous aspects; and (2) Behavioral perspective, including flexibility, focus, breaks–recovery, physical activity, and eating habit aspects. Whether the aspects supported or hindered health depended on the environment where office work was performed and the employees’ living conditions. We developed a visual model to illustrate how these two perspectives interact with each other, bridged by space and flexibility. The study also resulted in a battery of multiple-choice questions about work in office, at home, in public places and outdoors that can be utilized in future studies to better capture the variation in modern office work arrangements. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms that office environment plays a pivotal role in fostering health among office workers, and highlights through empirical findings that this applies across all settings where work is performed, including home offices and hybrid arrangements. The results emphasize the need for tailored health-promoting interventions that account for the diverse environments in which office work is performed and for individual needs. The developed visual model and the battery of survey questions can contribute to future research and the advancement of sustainable, health-promoting office environments.