Promoting the health of our commercial drivers: a vehicle to improve road safety?

Background

The UK logistics sector contributes over £13 billion to the economy and employs more than 500,000 HGV and van drivers. However, the occupational environment of commercial drivers creates barriers to adopting healthy lifestyles, leading to increasing risk of accidents, chronic diseases, and reduced life expectancies. Commercial drivers have been underserved in terms of health promotion efforts. This research aims to focus on improving the working environments and health of commercial drivers.

Objective 1 - profiling driver health and health-related behaviours

This research aims to provide a large evidence-base of UK commercial drivers' health profile and behaviours, using three approaches.

1. Driver medical data: Through our partnership with D4Drivers, we will have access to a large, anonymised dataset (50-60,000) of medical data collected over six months from drivers requiring a Group 2 licence (HGV/bus drivers) and other commercial drivers (e.g., taxi drivers).

This largest UK drivers' health surveillance study will compare the health profiles of different driver groups (bus/HGV/taxi) and explore the associations between weight status and the presence of certain licence-disqualifying conditions-diabetes, heart disease, and obstructive sleep apnoea. The aim is to provide robust evidence on potential health inequalities in this occupational group to influence national policy and enhance support for drivers' health and working conditions.

2. Commercial drivers' health status and health behaviours survey: With D4Drivers facilitation, bus/HGV/taxi drivers will be invited to complete an online survey enquiring about their health status, health behaviours (physical activity, sitting, sleep, diet, smoking, alcohol consumption), and, challenges and barriers to adopting healthy behaviours during their working days/nights.

3. Driver interviews Qualitative interviews will be conducted with a subset of drivers to understand their perceived challenges to healthy behaviours. The findings from the survey and interviews will inform the Driving Better Health Campaign led by D4Drivers. Objective 2 - Initial qualitative evaluation of the Driving Better Health campaign

An industry-led campaign, "Driving Better Health" (2024 launch) aims to promote and improve the health and wellbeing of commercial drivers. It will set a benchmark for employers to promote drivers' health and wellbeing and road safety beyond the legal minimum requirements while highlighting existing industry good practices to encourage others to follow.

Initial evaluation information will be gathered from employer representatives and drivers from focus groups and/or interviews to understand organisations' choices of opting in/not opting-in, which will provide insights in potential impact factors on those not engaged. The qualitative data will also showcase examples of best practice by employers to promote driver health, which can be promoted across the sector.

Objective 3 - A citizen science approach to support commercial drivers to make a direct impact on their working environment

This study, with a citizen scientist approach, will use Stanford University's 'Our Voice Discovery App' (https://med.stanford.edu/ourvoice.html) to enable commercial drivers (van/HGV/but/taxi) to record, via photographs and comments, anything that impacts their ability to engage in healthy behaviours as part of their jobs. The findings will be presented to industry stakeholders and used to advocate for occupational and environmental changes (parking, roadside, service and food facilities), which will be monitored by drivers.

Over time, this will potentially impact health-related behaviours at the individual, social, environmental, and policy levels.