ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
While more than 2.5 million U.S. high students worked in 2020, data to assess how work affects this group are sparse. To facilitate such research, a set of occupational safety and ...health questions for inclusion on the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and other youth‐focused surveys was developed.
METHODS
Survey questions about occupational experiences of young workers were adapted from other surveys or created de novo. Key audiences were engaged to define priority topic areas and develop draft questions, which were further refined through cognitive interviews with working youth.
RESULTS
Twenty‐one resulting questions spanned multiple work‐related topics: employment status; health outcomes; psychosocial exposures; and safety climate. Cognitive testing revealed that youth (aged 14‐19) had difficulty with temporal concepts. Some difficulties reflected the propensity of youth to engage in multiple, online, and informal jobs. During 3 rounds of interviews, questions were adjusted to better reflect youth employment circumstances and language. Four states added at least 1 work‐related question to their 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey questionnaire, and the full set of questions has been disseminated to federal agencies and partners.
CONCLUSION
Including tailored questions about employment in surveys of youth will facilitate occupational health surveillance for this group. Analysis of resulting data can help to close knowledge gaps, provide current prevalence data, inform policy, and allow development of focused prevention and intervention strategies to reduce adverse outcomes among young workers.
Several calls have been made by labour geographers in support for a more thorough investigation and theorization of labour as an active agent in the production of economic geographies. The present ...paper responds to this challenge by examining how Swedish agency warehouse workers and temp nurses working in Norway act and think in relation to mobility and how certain spatiotemporalities come into play in the mobility agency of individual workers. Though we are particularly concerned with the ambiguities involved in the relationship between mobility, agency and power, a second objective is to contribute to the theorization of how space and time matters to mobile workers. Drawing on data from twenty interviews with Swedish temp nurses and six focus group interviews with Swedish agency warehouse workers, and by combining several strands of literature ranging from current research on mobilities and migration to the work of classical scholars in geography and sociology, we propose that a ‘trialectics of spatiotemporalities' is part and parcel of workers' mobility agency. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the purposive agency as emphasized for instance by the notion of ‘mobility strategy' needs to be complemented by a conceptualization of agency that includes what we term (erratic) probing. We conclude that labour mobility may be strategic and a sign of power, but not always and everywhere, and not in any pure sense.
To date, determinants of retirement timing have been studied separately within various disciplines, such as occupational health and economics. This narrative literature review explores the ...determinants of retirement timing in countries, and relevant domains among older workers from both an economic and occupational health perspective.
A literature search was conducted using 11 databases. Longitudinal studies on determinants of retirement timing were included. Study inclusion criteria were as follows: full-text article written in English or Dutch, conducted in humans, main outcome was time until retirement (i.e. retirement date or retirement age), and longitudinal design. Next, the included articles were screened for hypotheses on retirement timing and these articles with hypotheses were subjected to a quality assessment. Determinants for retirement timing were classified into multiple domains by three researchers.
The literature search identified 20 articles. The determinants of retirement timing were classified into eight domains: demographic factors, health factors, social factors, social participation, work characteristics, financial factors, retirement preferences, and macro effects. In total, we identified 49 determinants, ranging from one (social, and retirement preferences) to 21 determinants (work characteristics) per domain.
The findings suggest that there is a wide range of determinants that influence retirement timing in modern industrialized countries and that these determinants differ between countries. We recommend that researchers include determinants from various domains when studying retirement timing, while taking into account a country's context.
In Flora!, co-authored by Geoffrey Stevens, the politician and humanitarian Flora Isabel MacDonald tells her amazing journey, from her childhood in Cape Breton through her years in backroom politics ...and elected office, ending with her exceptional humanitarian work in war-torn Afghanistan and other developing countries.
Background
As the US transitions to value-based healthcare, physicians and payers are incentivized to change healthcare delivery to improve quality of care while controlling costs. By assisting with ...the management of common chronic conditions, community health workers (CHWs) may improve healthcare quality, but physicians and payers who are making choices about care delivery also need to understand their effects on healthcare spending.
Methods
We searched PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, Embase, and Web of Science from the inception of each database to 22 June 2015. We included US-based studies that evaluated a CHW intervention for patients with at least one chronic health condition and reported cost or healthcare utilization outcomes. We evaluated studies using tools specific to study design.
Results
Our search yielded 2,941 studies after removing duplicates. Thirty-four met inclusion and methodological criteria. Sixteen studies (47%) were randomized controlled trials (RCTs). RCTs typically had less positive outcomes than other study designs. Of the 16 RCTs, 12 reported utilization outcomes, of which 5 showed a significant reduction in one or more of ED visits, hospitalizations and/or urgent care visits. Significant reductions reported in ED visits ranged from 23%–51% and in hospitalizations ranged from 21%–50%, and the one significant reduction in urgent care visits was recorded at 60% (p < 0.05 for all).
Discussion
Our results suggest that CHW interventions have variable effects, but some may reduce costs and preventable utilization. These findings suggest that it is possible to achieve reductions in care utilization and cost savings by integrating CHWs into chronic care management. However, variations in cost and utilization outcomes suggest that CHWs alone do not make an intervention successful. The paucity of rigorous studies and heterogeneity of study designs limited conclusions about factors associated with reduced utilization.
OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study was to compare return rates to work between different groups according to the decision from the workers’ compensation.
METHOD:Register data on disability benefits were ...used to describe return rates to work in Kaplan–Meier curves and association with decision on compensation claims. Disability benefits were granted by the municipalities independently of any compensation claim if sick-listed.
RESULTS:Claimants with ongoing claims were the group with the largest proportion remaining on disability benefits. Claimants with rejected claims returned to work at the same rate (occupational disease) or slower (industrial accident) than claimants with recognized claim without compensation the subsequent year and at a faster rate after decision.
CONCLUSION:Compensation claims and proceedings of the workers’ compensation system probably increase time to return to work; other factors such as health and social difficulties, however, may explain some of these differences.
This paper looks at the experiences, vulnerabilities and contributions of women health workers during Covid 19 pandemic in India. It elaborates upon their everyday struggles and issues including ...incidences of violence against them, poor wages, temporariness of their jobs and other labour rights. The paper further discusses the transitioning characteristics of women health workers in the context of corporate globalization in India. The paper offers a critical reading of health worker's rights from a feminist perspective and raises the challenges and opportunities the pandemic provides in rethinking the role of women health workers in India and women welfare workers in general.
Mortality tends to be higher among people who do not work than among workers, but the impact of work-related disability on mortality has not been well studied.
The vital status through 2015 was ...ascertained for 14 219 workers with an accepted workers' compensation claim in West Virginia for a low back injury in 1998 or 1999. Mortality among the cohort compared with the West Virginia general population was assessed using standard life table techniques. Associations of mortality and disability-related factors within the cohort were evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression.
Compared to the general population, mortality from accidental poisoning was significantly elevated among the overall cohort and lost-time claimants. Most deaths from accidental poisoning in the cohort were due to drug overdoses involving opioids. Mortality from intentional self-harm was also significantly elevated among lost-time claimants. In internal analyses, overall mortality and mortality from cancer, heart disease, intentional self-harm, and drug overdoses involving opioids was significantly associated with lost time. Overall mortality and mortality from drug overdoses involving opioids were also significantly associated with amount of lost time, permanent partial disability, and percent permanent disability. Heart disease mortality was also significantly associated with the amount of lost time.
The results suggest that disability itself may impact mortality risks. If confirmed, these results reinforce the importance of return to work and other efforts to reduce disability.
Objectives
This study aimed to characterize injuries and illnesses among construction workers in the State of Oregon in the US and examine the association between injury frequency and severity with ...hour of work by using Workers’ Compensation (WC) accepted disabling claims data in the construction industry from 2007 to 2013.
Methods
Injury frequency, rate, medical cost, and lost work days were analyzed by year, demographics, employment, injury nature, and temporal factors including hour of work. Multiple linear regression models were used to quantify adjusted associations between hour of work and medical cost and lost work days (indicating injury severity).
Results
There were a total of 12 222 disabling claims in the Oregon construction industry. The average annual injury rate was 2.21 per 100 workers. Both the count and rate of disabling claims decreased during the study period. Male workers and young workers had higher injury rates, while medical cost and lost work days increased for older workers. Injuries occurring at night were more severe. The distribution of claims frequency by hour of work was bimodal, with peaks in the 4th and 8th hour. Compared with the first hour of work, the 5th and 13th hours corresponded to significantly more severe injuries and illnesses.
Conclusions
This study identified the burden and distribution of work‐related injuries and illnesses in the Oregon construction industry. Continued intervention efforts should target certain subpopulations (eg, young workers) and certain working time periods (eg, mid‐ and end‐shift) to protect construction workers’ safety and health.
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