Historical Perspective: The Historical Development of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology

Abstract

The Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP) is the first professional group of its kind in the United States. The development of the Society can be traced to the development of the field of occupational health psychology (OHP). OHP is an interdisciplinary partnership of the psychological and occupational health sciences. The goals of this partnership include the improvement of the quality of people’s working lives and the enhancement of the safety, health, and well-being of workers. To our knowledge the first time the term occupational health psychology became visible in the research literature is in 1986 in a book chapter by George Everly, Jr.; the concept of integrating occupational health and psychology, however, has been around much longer (see Julian Barling and Amanda Griffiths’s fine history in a chapter in James Campbell Quick and Lois Tetrick’s Handbook of Occupational Health Psychology, APA Books)