Workplace-Based Interventions for Healthy Aging in the Transition to Retirement: A Scoping Review
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Systematic Review
Abstract: Background: The transition from work to retirement offers a window of opportunity to promote healthy aging, and before labor market exit, the workplace reaches people through their employment. This review maps workplace-based prevention and health promotion interventions for healthy aging in this transition. Methods: This scoping review followed JBI methodology and PRISMA-ScR. Five databases and citation tracking were searched for studies published from January 2016 to July 2026. Interventions were characterized by transition phase, form of employer involvement, healthy aging domains, and definition of the target population, based on the World Health Organization framework of intrinsic capacity and functional ability. Results: Five studies from four countries were included. The employer provided access to participants for all five interventions, but only one intervention was fully workplace-embedded. Four interventions were delivered before the labor market exit, and only one, a peer mentoring program, was designed to continue across it. All interventions were multidomain and centered on psychosocial and mental health and social participation, but none addressed cognitive functioning. All studies defined their populations by proximity to the exit, yet none defined the transition, and only one timed its outcome measurements to the retirement date. Conclusion: Within a small evidence base that limits generalization, the interventions used the reach of the workplace almost exclusively before the exit, although this access ends with it. Prevention across the transition would need to separate access, delivery, and continuation. Research needs controlled studies that define the exit, extend across it, and address intrinsic capacity, including cognitive functioning. Systematic Review Registration: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/YN6TK
Source: SocArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: Julia I Frank, Doris Gebhard
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225324774