Occupational social work in the Asia-Pacific in response to the economic and global mental health crisis; 28th Asia Pacific Social Work Conference, November 2025, Colombo

Workers across the Asia-Pacific face economic insecurity, climate change and escalating conflict. Workplaces can intensify these pressures by reproducing institutional power relations in occupational settings that remove autonomy, choice and self-determination. Occupational social work offers a response, yet its literature remains predominantly grounded in Western contexts and regional practice is fragmented by inconsistent definitions. This review asks what occupational social work looks like in practice across the Asia-Pacific and which practice themes recur. An integrative review design was used with four databases searched for peer-reviewed publications issued between 2014 and 2025, requiring a social worker as principal author or coauthor. Citation and author searching supplemented database searching, yielding 75 included studies, which were analyzed inductively. Seven themes emerged, clustering within three domains. Relational support comprises employee assistance programs, case management and return-to-work support. Organizational influence comprises culturally and spiritually informed management practices and responses to gender inequality and minority stress. Psychosocial hazard management comprises industry-wide risk mitigation and the hazards experienced by social workers themselves. Together these inform a tripartite model that reorganizes existing theory and practice by function rather than skill level and creates a clear practice framework of occupational social work across the Asia-Pacific.