To achieve its objectives, the FairHealth project is based on several different types of data collection, i.e. two quantitative studies and one qualitative study.
Two quantitative studies
The project consists of the creation and monitoring of two cohorts of employees followed for one year (cohort 1) and two years (cohort 2).
Cohort 1 will consist of approximately 600 to 800 employees working in a university hospital, interviewed by questionnaire on five occasions during one year.
Cohort 2 will consist of approximately 3,000 employees at inclusion working in the Pays de la Loire and Occitanie regions who will complete a questionnaire on the occasion of an individual health check-up either with their occupational physician or with an occupational health nurse. The employees who participated in the first measurement period will fill in the same questionnaire again two years later, again on the occasion of another individual health check-up. The data will be collected by a paper questionnaire at both measurement times, part of which is self-reported (filled in by the employee) and part of which is filled in by the occupational physician/nurse during the individual health check-up.
For both cohorts, the choice of these ranges is guided by the 15-20% occurrence rate of upper body musculoskeletal disorders in populations of employees in occupations at risk for physical health (Lamy et al. [2014]).
A qualitative study
The project also provides for the constitution of a sample of employees (60 to 100 people) with whom individual interviews will be carried out in order to examine in detail the employees' experience at work and in particular their experience of injustice, its determinants and effects on the employees' health and the extent to which the employees' health conditions their perception of their work environment. These interviews will enrich the themes addressed in the questionnaires and will be conducted under the same conditions of consent and confidentiality. These people will be recruited on a voluntary basis and will be interviewed several times over a period of 6 to 12 months.
This qualitative aspect of the FairHealth project is the subject of a thesis by our doctoral student in work psychology, Eugénie Joseph.