COVID-19 – Work, Stress, and Health

Quantifying Sick Leave Among Those Who Work Primarily Outside of the Home During 2020

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

The 2020 Summer and Fall Styles surveys asked whether currently employed adult respondents who reported working outside the home were able to take sick leave from work. We measured sick leave availability among respondents working outside the home in both surveys by total population and the subset of those diagnosed with COVID-19. Between Summer and Fall 2020, the proportion of people working outside of the home with access to paid sick leave decreased significantly.

An Expanded Conceptual Model for Research on Work, Safety, Health, and Well-being

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, & Well-being is a NIOSH Total Worker Health? Center of Excellence. Its mission is to protect and promote the safety, health, and well-being of workers through integrated workplace policies, programs, and practices that foster safe and healthy conditions of work. Building on its systems-level conceptual model centered on the conditions of work, the Center has expanded this model to include employment & labor patterns and the social/political/economic environment. The Center?s three unifying themes, informed by our conceptual model, provide a framework for setting priorities to ensure that our research and dissemination efforts make a difference in improving the conditions of work.

The NIOSH Surveillance Program: A look at public health emergencies

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

This poster presents activities by the NIOSH Surveillance Program during the latest public health emergency. Multiple contributions and activities are discussed.

Using workers’ compensation systems to improve workplace safety and health

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The mission of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Center for Workers’ Compensation Studies (CWCS) is to maximize the use of workers’ compensation (WC) claims data and systems to improve workplace safety and health through partnerships. This poster presentation will describe recent and ongoing CWCS surveillance and research studies to achieve several key goals (see https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workercomp/cwcs/publications.html).

Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The vision of the Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest is to create a safe, healthy, and productive workforce through basic and applied research, participatory approaches, and theory driven education and translation activities. The HWC is a collaboration which includes the University of Iowa, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas Medical Center, WorkWell KS, and two NIOSH Total Worker Health? Affiliates (the Nebraska Safety Council and the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition).

NIOSH Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Program: Work, Stress, and Health

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The NIOSH Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Program (AgFF) provides leadership and coordination between intra- and extramural efforts nationwide to prevent work-related injuries and illnesses among the nation?s agricultural, forestry, and fishing workers (AgFF). AgFF workers are exposed to high-risk, unpredictable environments, as well as long hours and shift work. Likewise, the majority of AgFF workers are in non-standard work arrangements, and unlike many sectors, most AgFF workers are specifically exempted in many regulatory policies regarding minimum wage, overtime, maximum hours per shift, child labor, and health and safety enforcement. This poster will highlight the NIOSH AgFF Program?s recent and future research, training, and outreach initiatives related to mental health and stress, sleep deprivation and fatigue, aging, workplace violence, non-standard work arrangements, and health equity in order to improve the overall health of all AgFF workers.

Robotics Safety and Health Research at the NIOSH Center for Occupational Robotics Research

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

Extensive research has been conducted by NIOSH and others on the safety of robots since they were first introduced to workplaces more than 40 years ago. However, this research focused on traditional robots that were isolated from human workers using guards, cages, or other controls. As robots have become more advanced, interactions with humans have become more common, and new ways of assessing and controlling the hazards associated with a robotic workplace are needed. The Center for Occupational Robotics Research (CORR) was established in 2017 as a virtual center within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to work in partnership with other federal agencies, academic researchers, employers, and others to conduct research and disseminate guidance on the safety and health concerns of working around robots.

Insufficient workplace infection-control and clustering of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors interact with poor self-rated health: a cross-sectional study among Japanese workers under COVID-19 crisis.

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

For the overall population health, it is necessary to understand the long-term health effects of COVID-19 exposure. We clarified whether workplace infection-control against COVID-19 and clustering of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors exert interactive effects on SRH among Japanese workers. We find that the risk of poor SRH was higher when people were exposed to insufficient workplace infection-control combined with a cluster of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors.

Working on the railroad during COVID-19: A case study analysis on employee perceptions of safety culture

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

This mixed-methods case study analysis investigates employees? perceptions of their organization?s COVID-19 response, and seeks to examine how these perceptions relate to the organization?s safety culture. Qualitative and quantitative archival survey data collected from one large freight-carrying railroad with sites across the U.S. was utilized to conduct analyses. The top five themes extracted from a bottom-up qualitative analysis of employees? open-ended responses about their organization?s COVID-19 response are presented and discussed (n = 196). Initial quantitative analyses that examine these responses in relation to employees? perceptions of their organization?s safety culture suggest that an organization?s existing safety culture may relate to its handling of the pandemic; a finding that bolsters existing literature on the many benefits of a strong organizational safety culture. Additional analyses are currently being conducted to further explore how the top five themes that emerged from open-ended comments relate to more-specific indicators of safety culture. In this way, we may be able to more finely-tune the practical implications of this work.