Advancing the Science of Working Life
SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS AT A GLANCE
The scientific contributions associated with SEWL seek to broaden how epidemiology conceptualises and investigates working life—from a predominant focus on individual occupational hazards to the investigation of multidomain Working-Life Exposure Systems and exposure biographies, together with the upstream Labour Systems and exposure-generating processes through which they are generated and patterned.
These contributions have developed progressively through the Working-Life-Exposome (WLE), Epidemiology of Working Life (EWL), and related work on Working-Life Exposure Systems and exposure biographies. Subsequent developments include Work-Structured Ageing, Exposure-System Science, Functional Sustainability, and Systems Epidemiology of Working Life. Together, they connect the organisation of working life and exposure generation with longitudinal exposure histories, biological and other pathways, population health, and Human Functioning across the lifecourse.
These contributions are not presented as fixed conceptual claims, but as scientific propositions, constructs, and research objects that can be operationalised, investigated, evaluated, challenged, refined, revised, or rejected through empirical research. Collectively, they provide an evolving foundation for the continuing development and empirical testing of SEWL.
Scientific Contributions Overview
Scientific contributions associated with SEWL span four interconnected domains: conceptual and theoretical development; methodological and measurement development; empirical investigation; and scientific integration and field development.
These contributions draw together scientific traditions including occupational epidemiology, population health, systems science, exposome science, lifecourse and ageing research, social and policy sciences, and the science of human-functioning science within a common explanatory and empirical architecture.
Across these domains, the objective is to develop testable propositions, measurable constructs, appropriate methods, and empirical evidence capable of supporting, challenging, and refining systems-based explanations of working life, population health, and Human Functioning across the lifecourse.
Figure 16 presents a simplified overview of the four domains of scientific contribution.
Figure 16
Domains of Scientific Contribution
These four domains represent complementary requirements for advancing SEWL: developing explanatory concepts, making them measurable, subjecting propositions to empirical investigation, and integrating knowledge across scientific traditions.
Conceptual & Theoretical Development
Conceptual and theoretical contributions focus on developing and integrating scientific constructs and explanatory frameworks for understanding working life as a population-health system.
These contributions include the conceptualisation of Working-Life Exposure Systems and exposure biographies; the development of exposure-generating processes as an explanatory focus; the introduction of Work-Structured Ageing; the development of Functional Sustainability as a longitudinal construct; and the integration of Human Functioning as a principal construct within SEWL.
Collectively, this work extends epidemiological attention beyond individual occupational hazards to investigate how Labour Systems generate and pattern multidomain exposure configurations, how these configurations accumulate and change across working lives, and how they may contribute to population health and Human Functioning across the lifecourse.
Methodological & Measurement Development
Methodological and measurement contributions focus on translating systems-based explanations into measurable constructs, testable propositions, and analytical strategies.
Current methodological development includes approaches for measuring Labour Systems and exposure-generating processes; characterising multidomain Working-Life Exposure Systems; identifying exposure-system phenotypes and reconstructing exposure biographies; and measuring multidimensional Human Functioning and Functional Sustainability.
This work draws on longitudinal, lifecourse, multilevel, comparative, causal, network, exposure-system, computational, and data-integration approaches to investigate complex and dynamic relationships across levels and over time, while retaining the exposure specificity required for causal investigation and prevention.
Empirical Investigation
Empirical contributions arise through the investigation, testing, evaluation, and refinement of SEWL propositions using population and occupational data.
Current empirical research is concentrated in two complementary areas: SHARE-based investigation of working-life histories, ageing, health, and Human Functioning across European populations; and EWCS-based investigation of multidomain Working-Life Exposure Systems and health, work ability, safety, and workforce-related outcomes among European commercial drivers and other working populations.
These studies examine particular components of the SEWL explanatory architecture across different populations, working-life contexts, and levels of analysis. They also provide an empirical foundation for progressively more integrated longitudinal, comparative, and causal investigation.
The objective is not to demonstrate that SEWL is correct, but to generate evidence capable of supporting, challenging, restricting, refining, or potentially rejecting its propositions.
Scientific Integration & Field Development
A further contribution lies in integrating scientific traditions around a shared explanatory problem: how the organisation of working life contributes to population patterns of exposure, health, and Human Functioning across the lifecourse.
SEWL draws together insights from occupational epidemiology, population health, systems science, exposome science, lifecourse and ageing research, social and policy sciences, and the science of human-functioning, creating opportunities for shared conceptual and measurement approaches, methodological integration, harmonised and linked data resources, comparative investigation, interdisciplinary and international collaboration, and prevention-oriented research.
Field development is therefore not an objective independent of the science. It emerges from building a coherent, testable, and cumulative research programme capable of connecting complementary areas of inquiry and generating evidence relevant to prevention, policy, and practice.
Scholarly Contributions & Publications
Peer-reviewed scholarship provides the principal scientific record through which the concepts, methods, empirical findings, and applications associated with the development of SEWL can be examined and evaluated.
This scholarship spans earlier work in occupational and population health, complex systems, syndemics, and occupational-health inequalities; the subsequent development of the Working-Life-Exposome and Epidemiology of Working Life; and more recent work on exposure systems, Work-Structured Ageing, Human Functioning, Functional Sustainability, and Systems Epidemiology of Working Life.
The publications below highlight selected contributions that have introduced, developed, integrated, evaluated, or applied concepts and approaches relevant to this evolving scientific programme.
Selected Publications (all hyperlinks)
Complex Systems and Population Health: A Primer. Oxford University Press, 2020.
The indispensable whole of work and population health: How the working life exposome can advance empirical research, policy, and action. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 2024.
A blueprint for a new commercial driving epidemiology: An emerging paradigm grounded in integrative exposome and network epistemologies. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2025.
The syndemic attrition crisis of European truck drivers: A systems-AI framework to transform research and policy. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2026.
The Epidemiology of Working Life: Reorganizing occupational health science around work-structured exposure systems. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2026.
Work-structured aging: A framework linking labour systems, exposure systems, and aging trajectories. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2026.
The military working-life-exposome: A systems-level framework for predictive military health research and operational readiness. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 2026.
View Publications on Google Scholar →
Looking Forward
The scientific contribution of SEWL will ultimately depend not on new terminology or conceptual frameworks alone, but on its capacity to generate testable explanations, valid and reproducible evidence, useful methods, and scientifically consequential insights.
The next phase will therefore place increasing emphasis on comparative and longitudinal investigation, methodological and measurement development, empirical evaluation, triangulation, replication, and international scientific collaboration.
As the evidence base develops, SEWL must remain open to critical evaluation, competing explanations, and the revision, refinement, or rejection of its propositions. Its concepts and explanatory models should evolve in response to empirical evidence, methodological advances, and scientific debate.
Ultimately, the contribution of SEWL will be judged by whether it advances understanding of how the organisation of working life, through Labour Systems and the exposure-generating processes they shape, contributes to population health and trajectories of Human Functioning across the lifecourse. It will also be judged by whether that knowledge strengthens the scientific foundations for prevention.