**Preface to "Workplace Health and Wellbeing during and beyond COVID-19"**

Coronavirus is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. After the first cases of novel coronavirus were detected in China in 2019, cases rapidly spread to countries across the world. This global outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. Over three years later, as of 12 July 2023, the number of cases exceeds 691 million, and almost 6.9 million deaths due to COVID-19 have been recorded. This led to an unprecedented mobilisation of the scientific community, responding at pace with research efforts to understand, cure or mitigate the virus.

The impact of the pandemic on work, health and wellbeing has been profound. Rapidly rising infection rates, led to national lockdown policies and changes to work activities. Mental and physical health has been impacted, with disproportionate effects in vulnerable groups. Unemployment has soared, and inequalities in the labour market have widened. For most people in work, the nature of work and their work environments have dramatically changed, with impacts on travel. Remote, home and hybrid working have become commonplace.

In this book, we begin by exploring the impacts of the pandemic on diverse occupational groups, including consideration of the broader mental health impacts of the pandemic, reactions to national lockdowns and behavioural strategies to control the spread of the virus, such as social distancing and self-isolation, attitudes towards infection control and work presenteeism. Based on longitudinal or cross-sectional data, papers focus on working-age adults, office, church and factory workers, hospitality staff, frontline healthcare workers (doctors, intensivists, paramedics, trainees), childcare staff and teachers, and university staff and students.

Next, we explore the relationship between job factors, working conditions and psychological wellbeing of employees. The papers that follow examine changes in work patterns and locations, such as remote, hybrid, and on-site working, the impact of organizational climate on mental wellbeing, and organizational approaches to return-to-work after lockdown.

The rapidity with which mitigation strategies were put into action is evident in this collection of papers. We delve into interventions that are aimed at improving mental wellbeing in the current and future generation of workers, including off-job crafting approaches, and digital support for mental health which was developed within three weeks of pandemic outbreak in the UK, with global reach among health and care workers, and trainees. Authors present in-depth evaluations of strategies to control the spread of the virus. This collection includes the first mixed-methods evaluation of the implementation of a highly innovative SARS-CoV-2 testing programme in a higher education setting and explored the barriers and enablers of testing access. While there were marked, negative impacts on diverse occupational groups through the pandemic, there were silver linings. Here, we present the first paper on workforce experiences of the rapid implementation of a COVID-19 mitigation strategy, revealing the career development opportunities afforded for employees. Other papers report on healthy environment initiatives, strategies for surveillance response and novel intervention involving the use of fluorescent markers for infection control and reduction of cross-contamination in clinical settings.

As the pandemic progressed, special attention was paid to the development of safe and effective vaccines that would be essential to control virus outbreaks, now, and in the future. To reduce inequalities in education and reduce vaccine hesitancy, we present COVID-19 Vaccine Education (CoVE) which was the first digital training package to promote the individual and societal benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine, accessed by healthcare workers worldwide.

This book demonstrates the breadth of research on work, health and wellbeing, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, covering workforce impacts and workforce interventions in various countries and settings. Learning from this research will help to build global preparedness for future pandemics and foster resilience for responding in times of crisis and uncertainty.

**Holly Blake**

*Editor*
