OJHQ | mikesyot

OJHQ: Occupational Justice Health Questionnaire
Raising Consciousness towards Just Occupational Participation in Practice

This page is intended to publicly share resources about the Occupational Justice Health Questionnaire and how it is used both in research and practice.

To know more, visit this website or contact our team.

Free Resource: OJHQ Questionnaire

Select one of the links below to get a free copy

Original Version

Wilcock & Townsend, 2014

Paper Version

English

Filipino

Online Version

Google Forms

What is OJHQ?

The Occupational Justice Health Questionnaire (OJHQ) is a tool that was originally created by Prof. Ann Wilcock and Prof. Elizabeth Townsend (Wilcock & Townsend, 2014).

The OJHQ was developed to aid occupational therapists in identifying injustices experienced by individuals, groups, and communities. Specifically, the OJHQ is a semi-structured way to identify determinants that characterize a person or group’s ability to engage in a variety of daily activities/occupations, ability to exercise basic human rights within a certain context, and inability to participate due to existing occupational injustices (Sy et al., 2021).

How OJHQ Works

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, practitioners administer the OJHQ to individuals or groups to gather information about their occupational experiences, rights, and injustices within specific contexts.

The data collected is then analyzed to identify patterns, themes, and disparities, guiding the development of targeted interventions and advocacy efforts.

Key Features of the OJHQ

Assessment Based on Human Stories

OJHQ provides occupational therapists with a structured yet flexible framework for identifying and understanding occupational injustices. By guiding users through a guided interview and professional reasoning, OJHQ enables health and social care practitioners to identify injustices that people experience and find appropriate support for them.

Advocacy Intervention

Armed with insights gained from the OJHQ assessment, practitioners provide an opportunity to advocate and partner with clients and communities. By raising awareness, mobilizing support, and influencing policy, occupational therapists and justice workers can work towards dismantling systemic barriers and promoting occupational justice.

Interprofessional and Collaborative Approach

OJHQ facilitates an interprofessional and collaborative approach by fostering communication and coordination among health and social care professionals such as occupational therapists, social work, legal professionals, nurses, doctors, etc. The OJHQ promotes a holistic approach to addressing complex issues of injustice.

Supported by Research

The OJHQ has been used in several studies now especially in populations that directly experience injustices in everyday living. While more research efforts needs to be done to ensure its effectivity in practice, we invite researchers and our colleagues to use it in both research and practice and write and tell stories about your experiences in its utility.

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OJHQ Research & Work

Research on the OJHQ remains limited today. While originally published as an open tool in the Willard & Spackman's occupational therapy textbook (Wilcock & Townsend, 2014), it was only used a few years later for a single-subject case study (Sy & Ohshima, 2018) and a cross-sectional, phenomenological study (Sy et al., 2019) within the context of substance addiction and rehabilitation in the Philippines. Moreover, a reflective paper has been published to examine its utility in research and practice, including the generation of a glosarry of terms regarding OJ-related concepts and terminologies (Sy et al. 2021). Most recently, a group of occupational therapists and health scientists from Australia and India are working on a funded project that focuses on the use of the OJHQ to explore justice determinants for Indian women who survived sexual and other forms of exploitation (Project Lead: Prof. Emma George).

While several researchers, educators, and students have contacted us about the OJHQ, these studies are still on-going. We are hoping that more health, social welfare, and justice workers can consider this tool for their scholarship and practice.