The psychosocial work environment includes the characteristics of job roles and broader work factors including workplace culture and norms (World Health Organization & Burton, 2010). The World Health Organization highlights the importance of considering these influences on worker physical and mental health, and worker engagement in healthy behaviours and workplace wellbeing interventions (World Health Organization & Burton, 2010). Working adults often have poor health behaviours, rarely meet physical activity guidelines (Garcia-Hermoso et al., 2023) and spend prolonged periods of time at work sitting (Brakenridge et al., 2016), behaviours that are associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes (Dempsey et al., 2020; Saunders et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2023). The workplace has been identified as a key setting in which to target physical activity and sitting at work (World Health Organization, 2018). The aim of this study was to conduct a review and meta-analysis to explore how the psychosocial work environment is associated with physical activity and sitting during work time.

A systematic search was conducted across seven databases and Google on 20/12/2023. Eligible studies explored the relationship between the psychosocial work environment (e.g., job demands, resources, work support and norms) and health-enhancing physical activity (e.g., walking, fitness activities, active commuting) and sitting during work time. Meta-analyses were conducted when there were n≥3 studies per comparison.

Fifty-one eligible studies were identified, including a total of 92,106 workers. Work types included professional positions (50% of workers), manual work (26% of workers) and other (e.g., nursing). Studies were primarily cross-sectional (n=40), with some longitudinal (n=4) and intervention studies (n=7). All intervention studies were in professional desk-based workers.

The most promising findings were for the associations between job control, social support, social norms, and perceived behavioural control with activity and sitting outcomes. Very few studies explored associations between job demands and job strain with activity and sitting. Physical activity outcomes were too heterogenous for meta-analytic comparison; meta-analyses were conducted on the sitting outcome only. Meta-analyses demonstrated beneficial associations of manager support, colleague support and perceived behavioural control with less sitting time (12–14 min/8-hour workday).

In conclusion, workplace support, norms and perceived behavioural control can impact activity and/or sitting during work time. These findings highlight the importance of creating a supportive psychosocial work environment in workplace health program design. Further work is needed to understand the impacts of job demands and strain on physical activity and sitting during work time.