Abstract
Abstract
Introduction
The gig economy is a promising arena to reduce unemployment and provide other benefits such as the opportunity to earn supplemental income. Like all other forms of work, the gig space also presents occupational health issues for those working in it. This proposed review is aimed at identifying and describing the common occupational health outcomes reported within this workforce; second, to examine the risk factors that contribute to the development of these health issues; and third, to assess the interventions and support systems currently in place to promote the occupational health of gig workers.
Methods
A systematic review will be undertaken according to the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Statement (2009). A search from 2015 to 2025 will be conducted on four global databases (Web of Science, SCOPUS, Academic Source Complete and Business Source Complete). Only records in English, full text and peer-reviewed journal articles will be included. Book chapters, thesis, reports and systematic reviews will be excluded. The Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools will be used to assess the methodological rigour of various studies prior to inclusion for the final analysis. The extracted data will be synthesised using a narrative synthesis approach, integrating findings from both quantitative and qualitative studies.
Ethics and dissemination
This research is exempt from ethics approval because the work will be carried out on published documents. We will disseminate this protocol in a related peer-reviewed journal.
PROSPERO registration number
CRD420250654059.
Keywords: Burnout, Health & safety, MENTAL HEALTH, Psychological Stress, Occupational Stress
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY.
This document outlines a thorough systematic review conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocols.
Including studies from diverse geographic regions ensures that the findings are applicable across various socioeconomic contexts, thus increasing the external validity of the review.
Relevant studies published in non-English languages and before 2015 may be missed by this review.
Introduction
Gig or on-demand work involves project-based or short-term employment arranged through online platforms. Alongside the rising shift of services towards platform-based business models, there has been an increasing academic interest in the gig economy in recent years.1 2 Scholars have made particularly notable efforts in the study of types of gig work that require less specialised training, including microwork,3 locally performed services such as food delivery,4 5 ride-hailing6 7 and creative freelancers including visual artists, graphic designers and illustrators.1
Projections from India labour statistics show that the Indian gig economy has the potential to absorb about half of the urban workforce, and this is likely to rise to 80% by 2030.8 In 2020, gig workers contributed $1.21 trillion in revenue to the US economy.9 This positions the gig economy as a strategic contributor towards achieving sustainable national per capita economic growth and full and productive employment for all in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8. The Fairwork project report in 2021 showed that about 60 000 to 1 00 000 Ghanaians find their livelihood in the platform economy, particularly in the ride-hailing and delivery services.10
The gig economy has significantly changed the fundamental way of working with many people choosing to work independently and outside of organisations in a way that was not anticipated by many organisational behaviour theories.11 The gig economy results in a grey area where workers are considered independent contractors and stripped of employment protection and benefits.12 Because they claim not to employ the people providing the service, who are considered independent contractors, gig business providers deny having an employment relationship or the responsibility to follow labour laws.13 Classifying gig workers as independent contractors saves these gig companies considerable labour costs but shifts the risk to individuals.14
This shifting of risk comes with huge occupational health consequences15 contend that those dependent on platform work face amplified job demands while concurrently experiencing a reduction in available resources, which likely results in elevated work strain for this group. For example, although gig work provides the advantage of flexible hours and the opportunity to manage personal commitments, it also poses considerable challenges, such as increased issues related to anxiety, mental health, job insecurity, job stress, violence and workplace difficulties.16 17 Ride-hailing drivers for platforms like Uber face unique challenges related to sleep and fatigue due to factors like algorithmic management, lack of regulations and high work-related stressors.18
Prior to developing this review protocol, we examined the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO), a principal repository for systematic review protocols. We also conducted a search on Google Scholar to confirm that no similar review had been undertaken, thereby ensuring that our work would not duplicate existing efforts. Eventually, we found no prospective or completed reviews on this topic. To date, few systematic reviews on some aspects of occupational health have been conducted on the gig economy. Notable examples include a review that identified and mapped physical and psychological hazards across the gig economy system using Rasmussen’s Risk Management Framework,19 a review on healthcare utilisation among gig workers20 and another on algorithmic management in the gig economy.21 Additionally,22 a recently conducted systematic review on work in the gig economy aimed to understand the lived experiences of workers involved with platforms, while23 focusing on psychosocial risks. However, since psychosocial risks represent only one aspect of occupational health,24 a comprehensive understanding of occupational health in the gig economy remains underexplored, leaving a significant research gap.
This fragmentation limits our ability to develop holistic solutions to the challenges faced by gig workers and to harness the gig economy’s potential for sustainable development. In the face of the growing calls to investigate the occupational health of gig workers,25,27 this systematic review on the occupational health outcomes of the gig economy is timely and essential to consolidate existing knowledge, identify critical gaps and provide a comprehensive evidence base for policymakers, businesses and researchers. By synthesising findings across disciplines and contexts, this review will not only advance academic understanding but also inform strategies to mitigate the risks and maximise the benefits of the gig economy, ensuring that it contributes equitably and sustainably to global economic growth and worker well-being.
Objectives
This review seeks to address three key aspects of the occupational health of gig workers: first, to identify and describe the common occupational health outcomes reported within this workforce; second, to examine the risk factors that contribute to the development of these health issues; and third, to assess the interventions and support systems currently in place to promote the occupational health of gig workers.
Methods
This systematic review protocol is being developed following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Protocol.28 On completion, the review will adhere to the PRISMA-2020 reporting framework.29 Additionally, the title and essential details regarding the study design and methodology have been registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD420250654059).
Eligibility criteria
Potential eligible studies must involve any of these populations, (a) platform-based gig workers such as ride-hailing drivers; (b) independent contractors and freelancers; (c) manual and on-demand labourers such as electricians on TaskRabbit sampled from anywhere in the world. Including studies from all geographic regions is critical given the global spread of gig work. Gig platforms operate in diverse socioeconomic and regulatory contexts that shape workers’ occupational health outcomes differently. Potential studies should be peer reviewed, full text and published in English from 2015 up to January 2025 and must also include measures of occupational health such as burnout. By setting 2015 as a starting point, the review captures the most relevant and rigorous evidence on gig work across the globe and its attendant occupational health issues.
Exclusion criteria
Studies will be excluded if they focus on non-gig workers, such as traditional full-time employees or general self-employed workers without gig-specific characteristics (eg, independent contractors not engaged in platform-based work). Additionally, the following study types will be excluded: reviews, meta-analyses, theoretical papers, opinion pieces, commentaries, editorials, unpublished dissertations, theses, conference abstracts, and policy reports, white papers or industry reports lacking empirical data. Studies that do not assess occupational health outcomes (eg, those focusing solely on earnings, job satisfaction or platform efficiency without health implications) will also be excluded. Furthermore, studies published in languages other than English or before 2015, when research on the gig economy was yet to see a significant expansion,30 will not be included.
Outcome
Potential eligible studies must have assessed or measured occupational health as an outcome of gig work. This includes, but is not limited to, physical health outcomes (eg, musculoskeletal disorders, injuries and fatigue), mental health outcomes (eg, stress, anxiety and depression), and social health outcomes (eg, work-life balance, social isolation and job insecurity) specifically linked to gig work. Studies must explicitly address these health outcomes in the context of gig economy participation, ensuring relevance to the review’s focus. Studies that only loosely mention health or do not provide sufficient detail on occupational health outcomes will be excluded.
Information sources
A systematic search of selected global databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete and Business Source Complete) will be conducted in October 2025.
Search strategy
Across all the selected databases, a consistent search string will be used. These are, ‘Gig work’ OR ‘gig economy’ OR ‘platform work’ OR ‘freelance work’ OR ‘independent contracting’ OR crowdsourcing OR ‘on-demand work’ OR ‘non-standard employment’ AND ‘Occupational health’ OR ‘worker health’ OR ‘job stress’ OR ‘workplace safety’ OR ‘mental health outcomes’ OR ‘physical health outcomes’ OR ‘work-related injuries’ OR ‘Health disparities’ OR Burnout OR ‘psychosocial risk’. The appropriate filters will be applied to exclude papers which does not meet our eligibility criteria. The sample search strategy and the filters are shown in online supplemental material 1 (Sample Search Strategy Scopus).
Data management
The data will be uploaded to Rayyan, a complimentary online tool for screening systematic reviews developed by the Qatar Computing Research Institute, an innovative branch of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.31 It will be used to collate, handle and manage the results of the database searches, to remove duplicates of records and to access the full text of potentially eligible studies. Notably, the selected databases will be searched individually, but the results will be combined before removing duplicates. On this platform, the titles and abstracts of the identified records will be screened for inclusion.
Selection process
Four reviewers (EAN, RH-G, SH and FP) will independently screen the titles and abstracts of the identified records through the lens of the prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Where the authors are unable to reach consensus, the specific papers will be referred to another set of three reviewers (CBA, ED and RA-C) for resolution. The full text of potentially eligible studies (after title and abstract screening) would be screened for inclusion.
Quality assessment
The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Tools will be used to assess the methodological rigour of various study designs, including quantitative descriptive studies, mixed-method research, qualitative studies, randomised controlled trials and non-randomised studies. These structured tools enable researchers to systematically evaluate the quality, validity and reliability of research findings, supporting evidence-based decision-making in healthcare and occupational health research. For quantitative analytical cross-sectional studies, the JBI checklist examines key aspects such as clarity of study objectives, appropriateness of study design and sampling strategies, validity of exposure and outcome measures, handling of confounding factors, suitability of statistical methods and clarity in result presentation. For qualitative research, the checklist assesses the clarity of research questions, appropriateness of methodologies, adequacy of data collection and analysis, credibility and transferability of findings and ethical considerations.
Data extraction
Following the screening, the relevant articles will be distributed among the four reviewers (EAN, RH-G, SH and FP) to extract the necessary information such as year of publication, country, study setting (gig sector) study design, sample characteristics (gender, age and job tenure) and the occupational health outcomes (eg, burnout, musculoskeletal injuries and anxiety) onto an Excel 365 spreadsheet. The extracted data will be shared with the other three reviewers (CBA, ED and RA-C) for thorough review, ensuring accuracy and completeness. During a scheduled research meeting, the entire team will collaboratively address any discrepancies and reach a consensus.
Data synthesis
The extracted data will be synthesised using a narrative synthesis approach, integrating findings from both quantitative and qualitative studies.32 Themes will be identified based on occupational health outcomes, including physical, mental and psychosocial effects of gig work. Where applicable, quantitative results (eg, prevalence rates, effect sizes) will be summarised descriptively, while qualitative findings will be analysed using thematic synthesis. Patterns, contradictions and gaps in the literature will be highlighted to provide a comprehensive understanding of the gig economy’s impact on occupational health.
Patient and public involvement
Since this study takes the form of a systematic literature review, active involvement of patients and the public is not necessary. The review will draw exclusively on evidence from previously published peer-reviewed research rather than generating new primary data. As such, there will be no participant recruitment, no direct consultation with patients or the public, and no collection of personal experiences. However, by consolidating and evaluating the existing body of evidence, the review is expected to offer indirect value to gig workers and the wider public through its implications for future research and policy formulation.
Ethics and dissemination
This study does not require ethics approval as it will be conducted using publicly available published articles. The protocol will be disseminated through publication in a relevant peer-reviewed journal.
Discussion
On completion, this review will provide the first comprehensive synthesis of the diverse occupational health outcomes associated with work in the gig economy. By offering a comprehensive synthesis, this review aims to advance the understanding of the occupational health implications of gig work, particularly its effects on workers’ physical and psychological well-being across diverse contexts. More importantly, the evidence generated from this review will contribute to the existing knowledge base, supporting ongoing discussions and advocacy for improved employment protections and practices tailored to the unique dynamics of gig work in different geographical regions. Additionally, the identification of research gaps will guide future investigations, encouraging more nuanced and context-specific studies on occupational health within the gig economy.
In conclusion, the findings of this review are expected to be highly relevant and valuable to a broad audience, including scholars and researchers exploring the intersections of work, health and non-traditional employment arrangements. Furthermore, the findings of this review may inform discussions among gig platforms on strategies to support worker well-being and productivity, while also contributing to policy debates on the development of evidence-informed regulations aimed at safeguarding the health and welfare of gig workers globally.
Supplementary material
Footnotes
Funding: This research received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (BANGA-AFRICA) [UG-BA/TRG-003/2024-2025]. The funding body had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation or manuscript preparation.
Prepublication history and additional supplemental material for this paper are available online. To view these files, please visit the journal online (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-103005).
Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Patient consent for publication: Not applicable.
Patient and public involvement: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
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