Research into Preventive Health Services in France: The Contribution of Case Studies
A current research programm (Julhe, Dir ) is looking at the reorganisation of occupational health and prevention services in France since the advent of the new ‘occupational health’ law (2021), which reinforces the objectives of prevention and workers' health. In order to describe and analyse in detail the different work configurations and inter-professional collaborations, we opted for the methodological choice of case studies. On the basis of individual interviews with several categories of health service staff, the study highlights the heterogeneity of the dynamics of the transformation of prevention and health services in France, as well as their various influences on the work of occupational health professionals (doctors, nurses, assistants, ergonomists, etc.). At the same time, our proposal will return to the methodological difficulties raised by such an approach : in particular, access to health services undergoing transformation, the mobilisation of professionals for research purposes in a context of work intensification, and the observation of unstable and plural multi-professional collaborations.
Within occupational health and prevention services, this research therefore examines the social conditions for implementing the multi or inter-professional collaborations promoted by the various reforms affecting occupational health and prevention services (Marichalar 2010; Barlet, 2015). The form of these multi-professional collaborations has as much to do with the legislative framework which traditionally governs prevention in companies in France (Brissy, 2022), as with the managerial configurations specific to prevention and occupational health services.