Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health最新文献

Objectives: This study aimed to describe how minority stress and employment discrimination are associated with job quality (ie, employment type and income) among sexual- and gender-minority (SGM) workers.

Methods: We conducted a pooled cross-sectional analysis of the 2021 and 2022 surveys from a national study of SGM adults in the United States. Using multinomial logistic regression models and stratification by six gender groups, we examined associations of minority stress and past-year employment discrimination with job quality.

Results: Among 4221 workers, 22.0% experienced precarious employment and 6.8% were unemployed. Approximately half earned ≤US$50 000. The mean minority stress score was 14.41, indicating moderate-to-severe minority stress. A one-standard-deviation increase in minority stress was associated with higher odds of precarious employment [adjusted odds ratio (OR_adj) 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.08-1.26], unemployment [OR_adj 1.36 (95% CI 1.19-1.56)], earning ≤$20 000 USD [OR_adj 1.57 (95% CI 1.36-1.80)], and earning US$20 001-50 000 [OR_adj 1.48 (95% CI 1.32-1.66)]. Employment discrimination was reported by 14.4% of all workers and was associated with precarious employment [OR_adj 1.25 (95% CI 1.01-1.54)], unemployment [OR_adj 2.11 (95% CI 1.54-2.89)], and earning US$20 001-50 000 compared to ≥US$100 001 [OR_adj 1.45 (95% CI 1.07-1.96)]. Transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) workers faced poorer job quality, greater minority stress, and employment discrimination than cisgender sexual minority workers.

Conclusions: Higher minority stress levels and employment discrimination were associated with worse job quality among SGM workers. Future labor market reforms should reduce minority stress and employment discrimination, as well as improve job quality, for SGM workers.

Objectives: Many employees combine their work with informal care responsibilities for family and friends, potentially impacting their well-being and sustained employability. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a workplace participatory approach (PA) intervention in supporting working caregivers to prevent and solve problems related to balancing work, private life, and informal care tasks.

Methods: We conducted a two-armed randomized controlled trial (ISRCTN15363783) in which working caregivers either received the PA (N=57), under guidance of an occupational professional serving as process facilitator, or usual care (N=59). We recruited 125 working caregivers from four Dutch organizations. Questionnaire-based measurements were assessed at baseline, 4, and 7 months. The primary outcome was work-life imbalance. Secondary outcomes were perceived social support from supervisors and colleagues, role overload, distress and perceived burden of combining work and informal care. Intervention effects were analyzed using intention-to-treat analysis and linear mixed models.

Results: The PA was not effective in reducing work-life imbalance, improving support from colleagues or reducing role overload, distress and perceived burden of combining work and informal care. However, the PA significantly improved perceived social support from supervisors at 4 months [β=0.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.21-0.88] and 7 months (β=0.36, 95% CI 0.02-0.70). Interaction effects indicated that improvement in supervisor support varied depending on the organization.

Conclusion: The PA improved supervisor support but not work-life imbalance. Further research should explore PA effects on working caregivers with and without balance issues and the role of supervisor support in reducing work-life conflict.

Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to identify risk factors for unemployment among middle-aged workers.

Methods: Searches were carried out in PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar until November 2024, focusing on observational longitudinal studies that involved workers aged 40-64 years. Three reviewers evaluated the quality of the studies. A random-effects meta-analysis was employed, and heterogeneity and publication bias were assessed.

Results: Out of 10 432 reports, 19 longitudinal studies (N=374 585 participants) were included in the review. The meta-analysis identified multiple risk factors associated with unemployment, including suboptimal self-rated general health [hazard ratio (HR) 1.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.21-1.70], mental health conditions [HR 1.48, 95% CI 1.30-1.68, particularly depressive symptoms (HR 1.42, 95% CI 1.14-1.76)], low job control (HR 1.30, 95% CI 1.17-1.43), and lack of physical activity (HR 1.56, 95% CI 1.13-2.15). Additionally, a higher risk of unemployment was observed among individuals with ≤12 years of education (HR 1.17, 95% CI 1.00-1.36), those who are unmarried, separated, or widowed (HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.14-1.79), and immigrants (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.11-1.44). Age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, musculoskeletal disorders, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, digestive diseases, diabetes, neoplasm, and limitations in daily activities did not increase unemployment risk.

Conclusions: This meta-analysis highlights the impact of mental health conditions, low job control, and lack of leisure-time physical activity on unemployment risk among middle-aged workers. Interventions aimed at improving mental health and increasing job control and physical activity could reduce unemployment risk.

Objectives: This individual participant data meta-analysis investigates the association between occupational physical activity (OPA) and both cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality across different cardio-respiratory fitness (CRF) groups among male workers.

Methods: Data were pooled from five European cohort studies. OPA was categorized into three levels and CRF into low, moderate, and high tertiles. OPA was assessed using self-reports and CRF through objective measurements. Two-stage meta-analyses were conducted. First, we analyzed each cohort using Cox-regression models then we pooled results with random effects model to evaluate the associations between OPA and both cardiovascular and all-cause mortality, stratified by CRF. Models were adjusted for age, body mass index, smoking status, leisure-time physical activity, and educational level.

Results: Among 9922 men (mean age 46.8, standard deviation 6.7, years), 55.7% died during an average 25.6-year follow-up, of which 29.3% died from cardiovascular causes. Individuals with low CRF and high levels of OPA showed increased risks of cardiovascular [hazard ratio (HR) 1.27, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04-1.55] and all-cause mortality (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.07-1.40) compared to those with low CRF and low levels of OPA. High CRF mitigated cardiovascular mortality risk (HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.79-1.48) but not all-cause mortality (HR 1.27, 95% CI 0.98-1.83) for those with high OPA.

Conclusions: Our findings for cardiovascular mortality suggest that high CRF levels may protect workers with physically demanding jobs from adverse cardiovascular outcomes, supporting the 'fit for work' principle. However, this protective effect was not observed for all-cause mortality.

Objectives: There have been concerns that the shift to more home-based work might result in increased alcohol consumption due to reduced supervision and increased accessibility of alcohol. Empirical studies indicate associations between working from home and alcohol consumption. We go beyond cross-sectional associations by using longitudinal data and directly inquiring about alcohol consumption while working from home.

Methods: Based on demographics of the Norwegian workforce, participants were recruited from an online research panel (sample sizes N=1257-4294) before (2018-2019), during (2020-2021) and after (2022-2023) pandemic restrictions that encouraged or mandated remote work. Fixed effects regression analyses controlled for stable individual-level characteristics.

Results: On average, employees working from home reported 28% more drinking episodes and 26% more heavy episodic drinking (HED) compared to other employees. However, changes in the frequency of remote workdays were not notably related to the frequency of drinking [B=0.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.12-0.16] or HED (B=0.05, 95% CI -0.08-0.19). Furthermore, relative to other employees, employees working from home during the pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021 did not increase their drinking or HED frequency from pre-pandemic levels (B= -0.28, 95% CI -0.74-0.18 and B=0.02, 95% CI -0.21-0.24, respectively). Few workers reported weekly alcohol consumption during office hours while working from home (1%).

Conclusions: The cross-sectional relation between working from home and alcohol consumption found in past studies was replicated, but, using longitudinal data, we demonstrated that employee characteristics confound the relation. Our findings indicate that alcohol consumption during home-based work is unlikely to constitute a significant public health threat.

Objectives: This paper is the first multidisciplinary study into the impact of new skill requirements in the job on absenteeism. The aim of this study was to investigate whether economic skills obsolescence (ESO) increased both absence frequency and average duration mediated by burnout and/or work engagement.

Methods: A longitudinal study was conducted on data from the Dutch Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability and Motivation (N=4493). Structural equation modelling was used to test the specific direct and indirect effects of ESO on absence frequency and average duration, followed by bootstrapping to compute the confidence intervals.

Results: ESO at baseline had a positive relationship with burnout at follow-up. In turn, burnout was positively related to both absence frequency and average absence duration at follow-up. The bootstrap indirect effect test showed that ESO had a significant positive indirect effect, via burnout and (lower) work engagement, on absence frequency and average duration. Furthermore, ESO at baseline was negatively related to work engagement at follow-up. Work engagement, in turn, was negatively related to absence frequency and average duration at follow-up. The bootstrap test showed that ESO had a significant indirect effect, via work engagement, on absence frequency.

Conclusion: ESO is associated with subsequent absence frequency and average duration of workers, both mediated by burnout and decreased work engagement.

Objectives: The aim was to develop a gender-specific European job exposure matrix (EuroJEM) for occupational physical workload and study its predictive validity for musculoskeletal pain in four European cohorts.

Methods: National, gender-specific JEM from Finland, France, Norway and Sweden, based on self-reported exposure information, were evaluated for similarities in exposures, exposure definitions, and occupational coding. The EuroJEM harmonized five exposures: heavy lifting, faster breathing due to heavy workload, kneeling/squatting, forward bent posture, and working with hands above shoulder level. Our expert panel addressed disagreements and missing information to reach consensus on exposure levels across occupations. To assess predictive validity of the EuroJEM, we examined associations between the harmonized exposure measures and self-reported musculoskeletal pain across the four cohorts.

Results: The EuroJEM provides semi-quantitative exposure estimates for 374 ISCO-88 (COM) occupational codes. Five categories of exposure were defined by the proportion of workers exposed within each occupation. Comparable and statistically significant associations were found between EuroJEM exposures and low back, shoulder, and knee pain across all cohorts and genders, except for knee pain among women in the Finnish cohort. For instance, in both genders heavy lifting, faster breathing due to heavy workload, and forward bent posture were statistically significantly associated with low-back pain in all four cohorts, with OR ranging from 1.25-2.18 (men) and 1.23-2.04 (women).

Conclusions: Despite differences in study populations and outcome definitions, good predictive validity was observed in each national cohort, suggesting that EuroJEM can be an effective tool for exposure assessment in large-scale European epidemiological studies.

Objective: Occupational health researchers have often treated gender as a confounder in epidemiologic studies, but gender may influence exposure profiles. This study investigated gender differences in occupational hazard exposures within the same occupation.

Methods: We analyzed the 6^th Korean Working Conditions Survey (2020), a nationally representative dataset from South Korea. After restricting the study population to 22 511 full-time wage workers, we assessed 18 self-reported occupational exposures (4 physical, 4 chemical, 1 biological, 6 musculoskeletal, 3 psychosocial). To create matched samples, each man was matched with woman in the same occupational and industrial codes using `nearest neighbor matching` based on the propensity scores, considering age, education, employment status, the number of subordinates, and company size. This resulted in a matched study population of 3918 male and 3918 female workers in 403 occupations. Conditional logistic regression was applied to examine gender differences within the same occupation, adjusting for other covariates.

Results: We found persistent gender differences in occupational hazard exposures, even after matching of men and women within the same occupation and industry based on propensity scores. Men reported a higher prevalence of exposure to physical (eg, loud noise) and chemical factors (eg, chemical products), while women were more likely to be exposed to psychosocial factors (eg, handling angry clients). The findings on musculoskeletal factors were mixed, with men being more exposed to standing and women to repetitive hand movements.

Conclusions: Gender should be considered when planning interventions to reduce occupational harmful exposures, even within the same occupation.

Objectives: Excess incidence of prostate cancer (PC) is frequently observed among firefighters; however, the association with specific occupational exposures of firefighting, as well as the influence of a medical surveillance bias, remains unclear. Our aim was to study PC risk within a firefighter cohort, applying indicators of exposures.

Methods: We used indicators of various firefighting exposures to examine PC risk among men in the Norwegian Fire Departments Cohort (N=4251). Incident PC cases, including clinical characteristics, were obtained from the Cancer Registry of Norway (1960-2021). Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) by cumulative exposure in tertiles (reference: lowest) for all, aggressive, and indolent PC, with adjustment for age and birth cohort. The cumulative incidence of PC across birth cohorts and diagnostic periods was examined.

Results: No clear associations emerged for any of the exposure indicators, although we observed an HR of 1.31 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.63-2.72] for aggressive PC in the highest tertile of fire exposure score and 1.31 (95% CI 0.60-2.89) for indolent PC in the highest tertile of inhalation score. Assessment of cumulative incidence demonstrated a greater number of diagnoses at younger ages after 1990, particularly for indolent and unclassifiable PC.

Conclusions: We found little support for an association between firefighting exposures and PC risk. However, our study had few cases in analyses by clinical stage. Challenges in studies of firefighters' PC risk remain, including difficulties in exposure characterization and the unclear magnitude of a medical surveillance bias.