Investing in workers’ health is critical to the future sustainability of social security. Such investment is at the core of a social security institution’s mission. The institution must thus assume the role of health promoter and work proactively to motivate and engage the insured population (i.e. within workplaces). Prevention and promotion approaches must be integrated into the institution’s vision and strategy, supporting the concept of Dynamic Social Security.

The social security institution ensures accountability and transparency in implementing its mandate to develop workplace health promotion.

The social security institution provides sufficient financial resources for workplace health promotion and established structures and rules for managing those resources.

The social security institution ensures equal access to workplace health promotion.

The social security institution develops its workplace health promotion activities based on a legal and financial mandate.

The social security institution must have a legal and financial mandate for its role as a workplace health promoter. The mandate defines the institution’s scope of action and allows individualized services as well as community-based workplace health promotion activities. The mandate establishes a statutory right to health promotion services for insured persons. It may also state that a specified amount of the social health insurance budget may be used for (workplace) health promotion.

This part describes the basic elements that should be in place to enable social security institutions to develop workplace health promotion activities:

• Legal framework;
• Definition of the role of the social security institution;
• Structures for workplace health promotion.

The guidance that follows is organized in three parts:

Part A, Basic Conditions for Workplace Health Promotion, deals with the structural issues to be addressed so that social security institutions can encourage and enable their clients – public and private sector enterprises and organizations – to develop comprehensive approaches to workplace health promotion.

In most cases, social security institutions are not legally required to become involved in workplace health promotion (WHP). However, there are a number of compelling reasons to do so, including the following.

The European Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ENWHP) defines workplace health promotion (WHP) as “the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work”.