An Occupational Perspective of Health

For nearly 20 years, An Occupational Perspective of Health has been a valuable text for health practitioners with an interest in the impact of what people do throughout their lives. Now available in an updated and much-anticipated Third Edition, this unique text continues the intention of the original publication: it encourages wide-ranging recognition of occupation as a major contributor to all people’s experience of health or illness. It also promotes understanding of how, throughout the world, “population health” as well as individual well-being is dependent on occupation.

At international and national levels, the role of occupation in terms of the physical, mental, and social health of all individuals and populations remains poorly understood and largely overlooked as an inevitable and constant factor. An Occupational Perspective of Health, Third Edition by Drs. Ann Wilcock and Clare Hocking, in line with directives from the World Health Organization (WHO), encourages practitioners of public health, occupational therapy and others to extend current thinking and practice and embrace a holistic view of how occupation and health interact.

Addressed in the Third Edition:

• An explanation of how individual and population health throughout the world is impacted by all that people do
• A drawing together of WHO ideas that relate to health through occupation, and how people individually and collectively feel about, relate to others, and grow or diminish through what they do
• A multidisciplinary orientation to promote health and reduce illness by increasing awareness and understanding of the impact of occupations across sleep-wake continuums throughout lifespans and communities

The connection of health and occupation is held to be fundamental, although ideas about both have altered throughout time as environments and cultures have evolved. To improve interdisciplinary understanding, An Occupational Perspective of Health, Third Edition explains the concepts of attaining, maintaining, or reclaiming population health through occupation.

Instructors in educational settings can visit www.efacultylounge.com for additional materials to be used for teaching in the classroom.

Practitioners and students of occupational therapy, health sciences, and public or population health will benefit from and relate to An Occupational Perspective of Health, Third Edition.

Ann A. Wilcock (née Ellison), PhD, BAppScOT, GradDipPh, FCOT, was born in the United Kingdom and was brought up in the Lake District. She graduated as an occupational therapist from the Derby School in 1961, and worked at Black Notley Hospital and Farnham Park Rehabilitation Centre before going to live in Australia in 1964. There she worked in large general hospitals in New South Wales and Tasmania in a variety of fields, including mental health, orthopedics, geriatric medicine, and neurology.

After many years as a practitioner, Ann moved into the academic sphere, eventually becoming Head of the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, in 1987. Her graduate and doctoral studies have been in the field of public health at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Her formal academic career culminated in her appointment as Founding Professor of Occupational Science and Therapy at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Other appointments have included Doctoral Supervision at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand; Visiting Professor at Brunel University, Uxbridge, England, UK; Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Charles Sturt University, Albury, Australia; and currently, the University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia.

Ann’s research interests have spanned active aging; stroke; children’s occupational potential; physiological influences on occupational performance; occupational balance; well-being; the effect of neurological disorder on the human need for occupation; population health; and the relationship between occupation, health, illness, occupational therapy, and public health. The highlight of her career has been encouraging the development of occupational science as an interdisciplinary and international force. She introduced occupational science to Australasia and in 1993 founded the Journal of Occupational Science and became the inaugural President of the International Society of Occupational Scientists (ISOS).

Ann co-authored Help Yourselves―A Handbook for Hemiplegics and their Families in 1966, was the sole author of Occupational Therapy Approaches to Stroke in 1986. As commissioned historian to the British College and Association of Occupational Therapists, she authored Occupation for Health: A Journey from Self Health to Prescription in 2001, and Occupation for Health: A Journey from Prescription to Self Health in 2002. The first and second editions of this text, An Occupational Perspective of Health, were published by SLACK Incorporated in 1998 and 2006, respectively.

As well as numerous chapters and articles, Ann has delivered keynote addresses at conferences in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and the United States and at the World Federation of Occupational Therapists Congress in Montreal in 1998. She is the recipient of (or honored by) a range of prestigious awards internationally, which include the following:
2013 Establishment of the Ann Wilcock Prize, University of South Australia awarded for Academic Excellence
2012 Establishment of the Ann Wilcock Lecture, Australasian Occupational Science Symposia
2005 Honorary Professor of Deakin University, Victoria, Australia
2004 Honorary Fellow of Brunel University, London, England, UK
Honorary Doctor of the University of Derby, UK
Fellow of the British Association of Occupational Therapists
Barbara Sexton Lectureship: University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
2000 Thelma Cardwell Lectureship: University of Toronto, Canada
1999 The Silvia Docker Lectureship: OT Australia
The Doris Sym Memorial Lectureship: Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, UK
Inaugural Henry Nowic Trust Occupation for Health Lectureship: Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia
1995 Wilma West Lectureship: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA


Clare Hocking, PhD, MHSc(OT), AdvDipOT, DipOT, was born and raised in New Zealand, sheltered by the hills of the Hutt Valley. Her early working life included periods as a clerical worker and time on the factory floor, inspecting components for telephone exchanges. Those experiences sharpened her sense of social justice, even before she knew that terminology.

Clare completed a Diploma in Occupational Therapy in 1982, then an Advanced Diploma in Occupational Therapy in 1989, both from the Central Institute of Technology in Heretaunga, New Zealand. In her first occupational therapy post in Christchurch, New Zealand, Clare gained experience in medical wards for older adults, long-stay wards for adults with profound musculoskeletal and neurological impairments, and with brief spells in hand therapy and burns wards. A move to Auckland, New Zealand in 1985 brought new opportunities running a vocational rehabilitation service for people recovering from traumatic brain injury, stroke, and multiple physical injuries, followed by a range of positions at one of Auckland’s large psychiatric hospitals.

Gaining an Advanced Diploma opened the door to academia in the newly established occupational therapy program in Auckland in 1990. As an inaugural staff member, that involved a steep learning curve in lecturing, curriculum design, and student selection, as well as the demand for higher qualifications. Clare was fortunate to study occupational science under Ann Wilcock’s tutelage. From there she took over the editorship of the Journal of Occupational Science, which Ann Wilcock had established, and Clare recruited Ann as her PhD supervisor. That pathway ultimately led to an appointment as New Zealand’s first Professor of Occupational Science and Therapy in 2012.

Clare’s early research was firmly grounded in occupational science, investigating the relationship between people and the things they make and use. That focus helped her form new insights into the identity issues associated with using assistive technologies, particularly wheelchairs and self-care equipment, and shed light on occupational therapy’s move away from arts and crafts and toward mechanistic explanations of the therapeutic application of occupation for health. Supporting the growth of postgraduate education in New Zealand, Clare has subsequently supervised research in topics as diverse as living with motor neuron disease, the supervision of occupational therapists, the meaning of occupation, and how occupational therapists take up ideas from the professional literature.

Accordingly, Clare’s extensive list of publications spans most of the English language occupational therapy journals and many key British and American texts. She has emerged as a critical voice within both occupational therapy and occupational science. Of note is her co-authorship of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists’ Minimum Standards for the Education of Occupational Therapists, published in 2002. This ground breaking work positioned occupational science concepts as the basis of the profession’s philosophy and practice. As co-chair of the Federation’s International Advisory Group on Human Rights, Clare continues to influence the direction and focus of occupational therapy education. Also of note, she co-edited Critical Perspectives on Occupational Science: Society, Inclusion, Participation in 2012 with Gail Whiteford, the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Social Inclusion in Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Clare has been an invited keynote speaker at events in Japan, Thailand, the US, Mexico, Britain, Australia, and South Africa. She has been honored with a range of prestigious appointments and awards in New Zealand and internationally which include the following:
2014 Adjunct Professor, Chiang Mai University, Thailand
2012 Visiting Scholar, Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Ethics, Salzburg, Austria
2011 Honorary Professor, Plymouth University, Plymouth, England, UK
2009 Adjunct Associate Professor, Charles Sturt University, Albury, Australia
2008 Ruth Zemke Lecture in Occupational Science, Society for the Study of Occupation: USA
Occupational Science Visiting Scholar, Brenau University, Gainesville, Georgia, USA
Visiting Scholar, Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand
2007 Sadie Philcox Lecture, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Visiting Scholar, Canterbury Christ Church College, Canterbury, England, United Kingdom
2006 World Federation of Occupational Therapists Merit Award for exemplary service
Visiting Scholar, Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway
2003 Frances Rutherford Lectureship Award, New Zealand Association of Occupational Therapists