Analyzing Affordances of Digital Occupational Health Systems

Abstract

This study adopts two distinct perspectives, employer and employee, to analyze the affordances of digital occupational health (DOH) systems and their appropriation. Data were collected in the context of a European collaborative research project that aims at developing a data integration infrastructure for context-aware health surveillance at the workplace. For employers the main affordance was to detect and prevent the health issues of their workforce. The main affordance from employee’s point of view was the possibility of being more self-conscious at work. However, the application of these systems might instigate several tensions, in particular those between privacy and security / wellbeing, between work and leisure activities, and between work and leisure roles. The findings of this study allow to direct future research on DOH systems to focus and eventually derive design principles that promise DOH systems to gain better acceptance and create higher added-value for all involved stakeholders.