Table 5 Recommendations for future interventions

Recruiting companies for workplace health interventions

•  It is important to identify named contacts when targeting companies. Local groups of H&S professionals (such as IOSH in the UK) may offer a route for this, snowball recommendations between companies are also useful

•  A greater focus on SMEs and micro-organisations is important, particularly those that do not work on major projects. They may be accessed through industry forums such as Working Well Together and Build UK

•  It is important to improve access to workplace health promotion for self-employed workers, this might be achieved by offering appointments at the beginning and end of working days. Providing links to resources that can be accessed outside of work hours might also be important for this group e.g. online resources, self-testing opportunities or weekend/evening clinics

HIV testing in construction

•  There is an expected benefit of targeting higher risk populations e.g. in major cities and on mega projects, where a greater proportion of workers may be from higher risk countries and/or living away from home and more likely to demonstrate high risk behaviours

•  Events must be planned to ensure reactive results can be sensitively and discreetly managed, and to demonstrate to participants that this can happen

•  Options should be available for individuals to have testing independently after the event if they prefer

•  Wider promotion through the sector is needed to get sexual health and HIV on the agenda of major organisations and projects and the industry more widely

•  HIV testing could be driven by outreach from public health services, to enable central funding of testing

Providing general health checks

•  Events should be planned to coordinate with and promote existing OH arrangements

•  The ‘volunteer’ model for health check delivery proved very successful, and reduces costs of health checks, but carries high administrative, supervisory and support requirements

•  Health checks could be expanded to include tests such as cholesterol and diabetes which are part of the NHS health check in the UK

Test@Work online toolkit

• Education of managers is useful to raise awareness of HIV, so that they can inform and support their workforce and promote testing

•  A separate resource for workers provided in advance of health checks would be useful e.g. a one-page document or online resources

•  There is an opportunity to remind employers of their legal obligations in respect of occupational health checks in addition to general health checks which focus on lifestyle factors

•  There is an opportunity to educate employers on the importance of organisational changes to improve worker health and support lifestyle changes