Work is an activity practiced by millions of people and valued across cultures and societies [1]. It is estimated that more than 50% of the global population participates in the labor market [2], and the number of people employed is on the increase in industrialized countries. In Canada, the number of workers rose from 15.8 to 20.2 million between 2000 and 2019, which represents a jump of nearly 28% [3]. Identified as a determinant of health [4,5], work can have positive effects on an individual’s health, well-being, and quality of life. For example, in addition to providing financial security, work can be a source of social recognition, protection against the decline of certain faculties, and social contacts [6-8]. However, work is not without risk, and can also have negative effects on people. Occupational injuries, whether related to a workplace accident or physical or mental illness, may diminish an individual’s work participation and quality of life. Not only do occupational injuries affect workers and their families, but they also have repercussions on work organizations, particularly by increasing absenteeism [9] or decreasing performance [10]. The social impacts of occupational injuries are also considerable, with an estimated cost of €680 billion (US $828 billion) in the European Union [11] or US $171 billion in the United States [12], only for the year 2019. The contemporary COVID-19 pandemic situation that has afflicted the planet since the end of 2019 adds to the daily risks that threaten workers. Stress of contracting the virus, accessing appropriate protective equipment, constantly changing policies and procedures, modifications in work tasks, obligation to telework, or uncertainties in the work schedule are examples of the new risks afflicting workers [13-15]. In doing so, constant and innovative efforts for the prevention of occupational injuries are required to promote healthy work participation.

Various primary (ie, to prevent their appearance), secondary (ie, to reduce their duration), and tertiary (ie, to prevent prolonged disability) prevention practices coexist to manage occupational injuries [2]. These practices respond to different needs and are implemented independently by many stakeholders at different levels, such as the work environment (eg, managers, unions or workers), health care and social services system (eg, ergonomists and rehabilitation professionals), or insurance systems (eg, rehabilitation advisors) [16]. This compartmentalized prevention model makes communication and consultation between stakeholders difficult [16,17]. In fact, it has been noted that few bridges exist in practice between the various levels of prevention, and there are few links between stakeholders where the management of prevention practices is concerned [17]. The benefits of eliminating the boundaries between actions in primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention by various stakeholders to adopt an approach of integrated prevention at work have been suggested [18]. Integrated prevention is garnering increasing interest from the scientific community because it would help support injured workers’ employment access, return, and healthy long-term continuation [19]. Actions traditionally associated with each of the 3 levels of prevention would then not be mutually exclusive and would gain from being integrated to increase benefits across the prevention continuum [18]. In addition to generating significant economic advantages in terms of effectiveness and resource allocation [18], integrated prevention would allow stakeholders to work synergistically [20], promoting a less fragmented prevention approach [18]. Although considered a promising avenue, integrated prevention is still an emerging concept and is not well-defined [17]. This gap in current knowledge makes it difficult to operationalize the concept, thereby impeding its implementation by stakeholders. Moreover, the concept was first defined in ergonomics, and described mainly in terms of workplace prevention interventions [17]. It would be required to ensure that the concept is formed from a perspective that includes the whole prevention continuum (eg, including also the rehabilitation level) so that all stakeholders share a common understanding of the concept.

The aim of this study is to conceptualize integrated prevention at work on the basis of scientific and experiential knowledge. The study will be guided by 3 research questions: (1) How is integrated prevention defined in the literature? (2) What are stakeholders’ viewpoints on integrated prevention at work? (3) What are the points of convergence, divergence, and complementarity between the information gleaned from literature and stakeholders’ experiences?

From a research perspective, this study will contribute to the advancement of knowledge about the occupational injury prevention continuum. This study is expected to offer a contemporary conceptualization of integrated prevention at work that clearly lays out the variables of this concept and elicits the viewpoints of the different stakeholders. Such a definition could allow researchers interested in this subject to refer to a common definition, thus facilitating the comparison of research results. In a next step, a formal validation study to obtain a broader consensus from the scientific and practicing communities on the proposed conceptualization will be carried out. The research team will also be able to develop a concept measurement tool and an intervention model that can be used by stakeholders.

From a clinical and organizational perspective, the clear identification of variables of integrated prevention at work (ie, uses, attributes, antecedents, and consequences) will provide concrete tools to stakeholders for the implementation of innovative and promising approaches.

From a societal perspective, this study will offer avenues of intervention to innovate regarding prevention of occupational injuries. These avenues will be all the more useful because they will have been developed taking into account the emerging risks encountered by workers in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hoped that the future projects that will be carried out following this study will help reduce the societal costs linked to occupational injuries.

This study uses a design involving data collection in 2 parts to be able to access a large pool of knowledge on integrated prevention at work from literature and data collection. In addition, the participation of different key informers from the world of work (eg, workers, employers, rehabilitation professionals, insurers) ensures that the results will be relevant to their reality, and optimizes the chances that the ideas for action that come out of the study are adopted in practice. The methodology of the study is described in detail to ensure scientific rigor and replicability. Nevertheless, as this study is conducted in Canada, the transferability of the results to other contexts cannot be guaranteed.

This article presents a research protocol to conceptualize integrated prevention at work on the basis of scientific and experiential knowledge. The results of this study will lay the ground for a contemporary conceptualization of occupational injury prevention in which the contribution of stakeholders is clearly explained. It is hoped that the results of this study will pave the way for further studies and interventions to ensure healthy work participation for all workers.