The tea plantation as a research ecosystem

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Abstract
INTRODUCTION The papers given so far in this meeting have reported on studies of many aspects of work performance, affecting different occupational groups with varied employment and patterns of work. Each gives a picture of one small part of the complex life of an individual or of an occupationally-defined group. This paper looks ahead to research needs and opportunities, and specifically to a situation where occupational performance can be related to the other aspects of life and health. The conference has brought together workers of many disciplines, it has shown the relation of nutrition, of physical environment and of infection to work performance and productivity, and by doing this has shown in a precise and quantitative form what had been vaguely and generally felt, that productivity depends on the worker's wellbeing in a set of complex ways. Such a conclusion has several implications for the pattern of future research: it shows that quantitative studies are possible and opens up the linkages between health broadly defined and the economy. It suggests also that the demarcation between work and the rest of life, so convenient for legislation and for the development of the profession of occupational health, has marked limitations. But if we are to study productivity and occupational performance in the context of the rest of life there are real difficulties in finding a tractable system.

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