Caught between Scylla and Charybdis: How Economic Stressors and Occupational Risk Factors Influence Workers' Occupational Health Reactions to COVID-19.

Workers and their families bear much of the economic burden of COVID-19. Even though they have declined somewhat, unemployment rates are considerably higher than before the start of the pandemic. Many workers also face uncertainty about their future employment prospects and increasing financial strain. At the same time, the workplace is a common source of transmission of COVID-19 and many jobs previously seen as relatively safe are now viewed as potentially hazardous. Thus, many workers face dual threats of economic stress and COVID-19 exposure. This paper develops a model of workers' responses to these dual threats, including risk perception and resource depletion as mediating factors that influence the relationship of economic stress and occupational risk factors with COVID-19 compliance-related attitudes, safe behavior at work, and physical and mental health outcomes. The paper also describes contextual moderators of these relationships at the individual, unit, and regional level. Directions for future research are discussed.

Bad Versus Good, What Matters More on the Treatment Floor? Relationships of Positive and Negative Events With Nurses' Burnout and Engagement.

Many investigators have reported the stressful aspects of nursing; fewer have focused on nurses' positive work experiences. For this study, we developed a 2 × 2 typology of positive and negative events related to the tasks of nursing work and the social and organizational context of that work: successes, supports, constraints, and conflicts. We hypothesized that positive events would predict engagement, negative events would predict burnout, and negative events would be more strongly related to both burnout and engagement. In secondary analyses of data from 310 acute care nurses who completed survey measures of workplace events at one time point and burnout and engagement measures approximately eight months later, regression results indicated that both positive and negative work events contributed to engagement, whereas only negative events were related to burnout. The results of dominance analyses established that constraints and conflicts more strongly predicted burnout than did supports and successes. Additionally, consistent with a "bad is stronger than good" perspective, the strongest predictor of engagement was lower constraints, although successes, supports, and conflicts also predicted engagement.

The chains of the past: A life course perspective on childhood adversity and organizational attitudes and behaviors.

Childhood adversity stains the past of millions of working adults worldwide. The impact on health and well-being is substantial-a now-acknowledged public health crisis. Yet, research in the organizational sciences has failed to recognize the burden that individuals with this difficult history carry with them into the workforce. By synthesizing an interdisciplinary body of scholarship into a cohesive theoretical framework, we provide a foundation for emerging work in occupational health psychology. Empirically, across two single-level multiwave studies, we demonstrate the importance of adversity in one's childhood and its impact on the workplace specifically showing that child adversity, directly and indirectly, impacts worker attitudes and discretionary behaviors. Further, providing one of the few examinations of stress proliferation theory in the workplace, we demonstrate adulthood adversity as an essential mediating mechanism that leads to these work outcomes. From an applied perspective, our results highlight a need to focus on the healing and recovery of adult survivors as they work toward breaking the chains of the past in their lives and at work. In presenting this life course perspective on organizational attitudes and behaviors, our work offers a unique and vital contribution to occupational health theory, practice, and research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Relationship Between Dispositional Affectivity, Perceived Income Adequacy, and Financial Strain: An Analysis of Financial Stress Perceptions.

Despite financial concerns representing of the most substantial sources of stress, the intersection between individual differences and financial stress has received sparce attention. Emphasizing the cognitive-appraisal process, our study reveals financial stress perceptions partly reflect a dispositional tendency to interpret financial information either more positively or negatively. Across two studies (N = 441; N = 348), we found that positive and negative affect predict subjective financial perceptions of income adequacy. Further, using Relative Weights Analysis, we demonstrate that in predicting financial stress perceptions, dispositional affect is as important as, or more important than, objective measures of financial stress (i.e., household income and debt). Lastly, using moderated mediation, we found that both current and future perceived income adequacy mediate the relationship between one's income and their experience of affective financial strain, and dispositional affect moderates this relationship. Our work informs current research and interventions seeking to understand individual differences in financial stress perceptions.

Getting crafty: Examining social resource crafting's relationship with work engagement and social support.

Social resource crafting is a job crafting strategy in which employees proactively increase their social resources (e.g., feedback from coworkers, coaching from supervisor). We examined social resource crafting's relationships with work-related social support (perceived supervisor and coworker support) and work engagement. Specifically, as there has been growing interest in understanding resource crafting and work engagement, we investigated the directionality of this relationship. Using a two-wave study and structural equation modelling, we tested the dual pathways between resource crafting and work engagement as well as resource crafting's relationship with each type of support. The results suggested social resource crafting was associated with higher levels of coworker support-but not supervisor support - over time and supported a unidirectional path from social resource crafting to work engagement. Our findings provide valuable insight into the power employees have to craft their own positive experiences at work.

Daily expression of workaholism and family outcomes: The buffering and magnifying effects of economic resources.

Workaholism is increasingly recognized as a potential threat to occupational health. Although most research has conceptualized workaholism as a trait, some research suggests that it may also fluctuate from day to day. Moreover, the effects of the dynamic properties of workaholism on work and family outcomes may be contingent on one's economic situation. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to test the interactive effect of workday workaholism and economic resources on nightly work-family conflict and family engagement. Using experience sampling methodology, we demonstrated that workaholism fluctuates from one day to the next and has detrimental short-term effects on work-family conflict. Additionally, our findings indicated that the interaction between workday workaholism and perceived income adequacy predicted both nighty work-family conflict and family engagement. While the association between workday workaholism and work-family conflict was stronger for those who experienced low income adequacy, the relationship between workaholism and family engagement was stronger for those who exhibited high income adequacy. Similarly, job security buffered the effect of workaholism on work-family conflict. We discuss the theoretical and practice implications of this study as well as recommend future research directions.

Resilience-Related Resources Predict Physicians' Fatigue, Job Search Behavior, and Productivity Outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research was to assess the relative contribution of three resilience-related dispositional resources (trait mindfulness, core self-evaluations, and optimism) to emergency medicine physicians' fatigue, retention, and productivity. METHODS: We surveyed emergency physicians employed by a national (US) medical staffing organization. The survey included measures of work stressors, resilience resources, job search behavior, and fatigue. We linked the survey responses to objective demographic and productivity measures from the organization's records. RESULTS: A total of 371 respondents completed the survey. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated support for each of the three resilience-related resources as predictors. Relative weights analyses showed that resilience accounted for 14% and 62% of the outcome variance, whereas work demands accounted for between 32% and 56%. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple facets of dispositional resilience are important predictors of emergency medicine physicians' occupational health, retention, and productivity.

The Dobbs Decision and the Future of Occupational Health in the US.

Access to abortion care has a profound impact on women's ability to participate in the workforce. In the US, restrictions on abortion care have waxed and waned over the years, including periods when abortion was broadly permitted across the nation for most pregnant people for a substantial proportion of pregnancy and times when restrictions varied across states, including states where abortion is banned for nearly all reasons. Additionally, access to abortion care has always been a reproductive justice issue, with some people more able to access this care than others even when it is structurally available. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, returning to states the ability to determine restrictions on abortion, including near-total bans on abortion. In this anthology, ten experts share their perspectives on what the Dobbs decision means for the future, how it will exacerbate existing, well-researched issues, and likely also create new challenges needing investigation. Some contributions are focused on research directions, some focus on implications for organizations, and most include both. All contributions share relevant occupational health literature and describe the effects of the Dobbs decision in context.

Psychosocial safety climate and stigma: Reporting stress-related concerns at work.

While researchers have begun to investigate theory and methods related to attenuating stress-related issues at work, one underexplored area is a barrier to reporting stress-related concerns in the workplace. Research on organizational climate broadly covers psychosocial safety at work. However, the literature has not examined other, more specific factors such as stigma towards reporting stress-related concerns in the workplace. Using a prospective design, the current study examined the distinction between psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and stigmas surrounding reporting stress that may exist in organizations. Furthermore, we investigated whether PSC would buffer against the effects of such stigmas. The findings of this study indicate that stigma and PSC are distinct and can independently predict psychosocial outcomes. The results also indicate that PSC may play a role in attenuating the effects of these stigmas on some psychosocial outcomes. Implications and potential avenues for future research in this area are discussed.

A Mixed-methods Approach for Improving Radiation Safety Culture in Open-source University Laboratories.

The radiation safety culture of those working in university open-source radioactive material laboratories was assessed by conducting both surveys and behavioral observations. Baseline results (n = 82, 89% response rate) of assessed safety culture categories indicated safety practices and safety compliance were the most in need of improvement. Specific training based on these results was provided to laboratory members at Princeton University, with creative signage and a safety newsletter posted in and around laboratories for reinforcement, in a targeted effort to improve the radiation safety culture. Signage posted utilized pop cultural memes and other engaging graphics designed to raise awareness of appropriate safety practices and the minimum laboratory attire expected while working in radioactive material laboratories. Postintervention results (n = 38, 43% response rate) indicated improvement in 4 out of the 10 safety culture indicators considered as well as fewer instances of improper safety practices. Collaborative techniques and increased communication between researchers and radiation safety staff appear to have initiated an improvement in the radiation safety culture in open-source radioactive material laboratories at Princeton University.

How does Organizational Climate Motivate Employee Safe and Healthy Behavior in Small Business?: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective.

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the motivational processes between employee occupational safety and health climates and behaviors using the Theory of Self-Determination in a sample of diverse small businesses. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data to assess whether employee safety/health intrinsic, identified, and external motives mediate the relationship between safety/health climate and behavior. RESULTS: All three types of motivation mediated the relationship between safety and health climates and behaviors. CONCLUSION: Small businesses seeking to engage employees in Total Worker Health efforts should build strong safety and health climates because of their influence on employees' motivation to participate in health promoting and health protective programs.

Occupational Health Science in the Time of COVID-19: Now more than Ever.

Workers bear a heavy share of the burden of how countries contend with COVID-19; they face numerous serious threats to their occupational health ranging from those associated with direct exposure to the virus to those reflecting the conflicts between work and family demands. Ten experts were invited to comment on occupational health issues unique to their areas of expertise. The topics include work-family issues, occupational health issues faced by emergency medical personnel, the transition to telework, discrimination against Asian-Americans, work stressors, presenteeism, the need for supportive supervision, safety concerns, economic stressors, and reminders of death at work. Their comments describe the nature of the occupational health concerns created by COVID-19 and discuss both unanswered research questions and recommendations to help organizations reduce the impacts of COVID-19 on workers.

Stress and counterproductive work behavior: multiple relationships between demands, control, and soldier indiscipline over time.

Cognitive Resource Theory (CRT) suggests that under high levels of stress, employees are more prone to committing indiscipline. As few studies have examined this relationship over time, the authors conducted a six-wave longitudinal study examining the relationship of soldiers' indiscipline with work demands and control. The study included archival data collected quarterly over 2 years from 1,701 soldiers representing 10 units in garrison (Germany and Italy), in training rotations (Grafenwoehr, Germany), and on peacekeeping deployments (Kosovo, Kuwait). No main effects were found for work overload, and the findings for the moderating effects of control were contradictory. Within each time point, as work overload increased, soldiers who felt less control committed more indiscipline, supporting CRT. Over time, however, as work overload increased, soldiers who perceived less control 6 months earlier committed less indiscipline. Additionally, the authors found reverse causal effects for control such that prior perceptions of a lack of control were associated with indiscipline and prior incidents of indiscipline with less control.

Stigma at work: The psychological costs and benefits of the pressure to work safely.

INTRODUCTION: Workplace accidents and injuries can be quite costly to both individual employees and their organizations. While safety climate (i.e., perceptions of policies and procedures related to safety that should reflect an organization's value of safety) has been established as a predictor of safety behaviors, less research has considered the possible negative pressures that could result from an environment that emphasizes safety. Though organizations may intend to create a positive safety climate, concerns about being treated differently if an employee were to be involved in a safety incident may result in unintended, but detrimental safety and health outcomes. METHOD: This study investigated the stigma associated with being involved in a safety-related incident in relation to self-reported safety behaviors and psychological health outcomes. The data were acquired through a two-wave prospective design, surveying workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; N = 528) who indicated they were exposed to at least one physical work stressor (e.g., heavy lifting; air quality; standing for extended periods) a few times each month or more. RESULTS: When controlling for safety climate, safety stigma was related to decreased safety compliance and poorer psychological health. There was a marginally significant interaction between safety stigma and safety motivation in relation to safety compliance. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that experiencing pressure to work safely, for fear of being evaluated negatively, may actually come at the cost of employees' safety compliance and psychological health. Practical applications: These results may be useful in assessing and intervening to improve an organization's safety climate. Organizations should closely examine the climate for safety to ensure that positive aspects of safety are not undermined by a stigmatizing pressure associated with safety in the work environment.

One Climate or Many: Examining the Structural Distinctiveness of Safety, Health, and Stress Prevention Climate Measures.

OBJECTIVE: This study explores the structural distinctiveness of safety, health, and stress prevention climate scales and examines whether these measures predict safety, physical health, and mental health outcomes over time. METHODS: We obtained samples of university students, Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and firefighters to assess the dimensionality of the three climate foci, and provide content, construct, and criterion validity of the three measures. RESULTS: Findings from our study suggest that the constructs of safety, health, and stress prevention climate are psychometrically distinct, as well as demonstrate content, construct, and criterion validity evidence. CONCLUSION: This study provides preliminary evidence for integrating the constructs of safety, health, and stress prevention climate in the Total Worker Health™ framework for predicting safety-, health-, and stress-related outcomes.

Economic stress and well-being: Does population health context matter?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of county-level population health determinants in predicting individual employee reactions to economic stress. Using multilevel modeling and a population health perspective, we tested a model linking nationally representative individual-level data (N = 100,968) on exposure to economic stressors and county-level population health determinants (N = 3,026) to responses on a composite measure of individual well-being that included the facets of purpose, community, physical, and social well-being, as well as life satisfaction. Results indicate that higher income- and employment-related economic stress were significantly related to poorer well-being. Additionally, living in a county with more positive population health determinants was significantly predictive of individual well-being. Finally, the Level-1 relationship between income-related stress and well-being was significantly attenuated for individuals living in counties with more positive population health determinants. In contrast, employment-related stress had a stronger negative relationship with well-being for individuals who lived in counties with more positive population health determinants. We discuss these findings in light of conservation of resources and relative deprivation theories, as well as how they may extend the scientific foundation for evidence-based social policy and evidence-based intervention programs aimed at lessening the effects of economic stress on individual well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record

Does talking the talk matter? Effects of supervisor safety communication and safety climate on long-haul truckers' safety performance.

This study examines the distinct contribution of supervisory safety communication and its interaction with safety climate in the prediction of safety performance and objective safety outcomes. Supervisory safety communication is defined as subordinates' perceptions of the extent to which their supervisor provides them with relevant safety information about their job (i.e., top-down communication) and the extent to which they feel comfortable discussing safety issues with their supervisor (i.e., bottom-up communication). Survey data were collected from 5162 truck drivers from a U.S. trucking company with a 62.1% response rate. Individual employees' survey responses were matched to their safety outcomes (i.e., lost-time injuries) six months after the survey data collection. Results showed that the quality of supervisor communication about safety uniquely contributes to safety outcomes, above and beyond measures of both group-level and organization-level safety climate. The construct validity of a newly-adapted safety communication scale was demonstrated, particularly focusing on its distinctiveness from safety climate and testing a model showing that communication had both main and moderating effects on safety behavior that ultimately predicted truck drivers' injury rates. Our findings support the need for continued attention to supervisory safety communication as an important factor by itself, as well as a contingency factor influencing how safety climate relates to safety outcomes.

Carrots, Not Sticks: Adverse Impact and Wellness Programs.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine if wellness programs are likely to produce an adverse impact in various protected groups and to determine what features of the program may contribute to adverse impact. METHODS: Using a nationally representative sample of US adults, we examined the proportions of protected groups that would be expected to encounter adverse impact using various health factors such as weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. RESULTS: The results of this study indicate that disincentive-based programs pose a high risk of differentially selecting protected groups into program categories. This is especially true for members of multiple protected classes. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest organizations carefully consider both the type of program and the health factors incorporated into their wellness efforts and use incentives rather than disincentives to encourage health promotion.

Money Matters: Recommendations for Financial Stress Research in Occupational Health Psychology.

Money is arguably the most important resource derived from work and the most important source of stress for contemporary employees. A substantial body of research supports the relationship between access to financial resources and health and well-being, both at individual and aggregated (e.g. national) levels of analysis. Yet, surprisingly little occupational health psychology research has paid attention to financial issues experienced specifically by those in the labour force. With these issues in mind, the overarching goal of the present paper was to address conceptual and measurement issues in the study of objective and subjective aspects of financial stress and review several assessment options available to occupational health psychology researchers for both aspects of financial stress. Where appropriate, we offer guidance to researchers about choices among various financial stress measures and identify issues that require further research attention. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.