This is the first of a number of blogs detailing the numerous obstacles in the U.S. to creating healthy workplaces that in turn promote healthy work.Today the New York Times published an article by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura (@kimidefreytas) titled "A Hospital Finds an...
“Work, Health, Stress” A Collaboration between CSE and Suramericana, Colombia
The CSE has been invited by Sebastián Segura (PRAX) and Viviola Gómez (Professor, the Stress and Health Research Group of the Universidad de los Andes) to collaborate with Suramericana — a large Colombian occupational health insurance company that provides workplace...
WHO/ILO: Long work hours contribute to deaths worldwide
Long working hours are increasing deaths from heart disease and stroke — a new study from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) — documents that long working hours (>55 hours a week) contributed to 745,000 deaths in...
Essential Workers, Co-morbidities and Covid-19 Risk
The provision of healthy working conditions to all workers is critical to ensure their mental and physical health as well as their rapid recovery after COVID-19. In an article under review at an occupational health academic journal, our HWC team led by Dr. Pouran...
Linking job characteristics to mortality
This past week, an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology of the American Psychological Association found that job demands affect employee health outcomes. In This job is (literally) killing me: A moderated-mediated model linking work characteristics to...
CDC Reverses Itself Once Again. They are STILL WRONG.
The CDC has reversed itself once again about the transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus. On their website — updated yesterday — they said “A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website. CDC is...
Workplace conditions that are contributing to the Covid-19 epidemic
Workplace conditions for essential workers typically have three characteristics that contribute to increased risk of exposure to the Covid-19 virus and, once infected, more severe illness:Enclosed spacesHigh population densityPersistent work stressors contribute to...
Work Stressors contribute to the following health outcomes
There has been a lot of work documenting the role of work stressors in contributing to illness in working people. The list of health outcomes is considerable. Work stressors such as job strain, imbalance between effort and reward (ERI) , threat avoidant vigilance...
Is the government giving up on protecting working people from Covid-19
It appears that the U.S. government is exploring the possibility of trying to get working people back on the job without providing them with adequate protection in the form of PPE or insisting on proper social distancing. Sending people back to work without protection...
How to protect “essential’ working people from COVID-19 Epidemic
To protect the vulnerable from Covid-19 requires active, assertive and comprehensive identification of 1) those at risk; 2) those infected (but not symptomatic); 3) those with active symptoms; and 4) those who have been infected and now have immunity and can safely...