Are you interested in a combination of occupational healthcare, organization/policy science and health education? Would you like to advise organisations and policymakers about the health and sustainable employability of employees? And would you like to help people stay healthy and productive throughout their career, also those with chronic diseases and other disabilities?

Then you should consider getting a master’s in Occupational Health and Sustainable Work. The programme combines theories of health and labour participation with practical training, enabling you to formulate and implement health strategies and interventions. You’ll also learn how you can evaluate these strategies and interventions. As of the academic year 2022/2023 the programme will be updated in order to stay aligned with contemporary challenges in work, health and career and the changing world of work.

Upon graduation, you’ll have all the knowledge and skills you need for a career in occupational health consultancy, management, policy-making and research.

Why this programme?

'Sustainable work' has shot to the top of the agenda in recent years. Governments and companies need employees to remain healthy and productive throughout their careers. Good employee health and decent work are also among the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and urgent action is needed. How do we create decent jobs, which provide a good match between the individual and the job? How to balance work and family lives? And how to maintain employees’ health, employability and functional capacities over the years in a context of constantly changing labour markets and social welfare policies?

There is a real need – and a job market – for experts on these contemporary issues. Occupational Health and Sustainable Work focuses on health, wellbeing and employability across the lifespan. You learn to weigh up the diverse interests of workers, families and companies. You will be taught about the changing world of work and social welfare and how you can respond to that. In line with that, you’ll develop and evaluate cutting-edge interventions and strategies to promote sustainable working lives.

Multidisciplinary and practical programme:

The health issues that you encounter in the workplace are very diverse. A high workload might cause stress, an inadequately designed workplace might cause physical problems and over the course of their career some employees develop a chronic illness. The may be equally varied. You may be asked to give strategic advice, formulate health policies or you may be handling individual cases.

The programme will therefore provide you with a multidisciplinary and practical training that combines the best of different worlds. You’ll learn about occupational healthcare, organisational and policy science, and health promotion. By combining this with special communications and skills training sessions you’ll learn how to formulate, implement and evaluate evidence-based interventions. The multifaceted nature of the programme ensures that you'll have all the knowledge you need to adequately handle many different situations later on in your career.

Small groups = big advantages

As with many Maastricht University programmes, the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences programmes are taught using Problem-Based Learning (PBL). In small tutorial groups of 10 to 12 students, you seek solutions to ‘problems’ taken from real-world situations.

Instructors act as facilitators, giving help as it’s needed. This allows you to build independence and develop problem-solving skills that you’ll need in the field. This active, dynamic and collaborative learning method has one of the highest knowledge retention rates of any instructional method.