Individual-level and plant-level predictors of acute, traumatic occupational injuries in a manufacturing cohort.

Objectives: Workplace and contextual factors that may affect risk for worker injury are not well described. This study used results from an employee job satisfaction survey to construct aggregate indicators of the work environment and estimate the relative contribution of those factors to injury rates in a manufacturing cohort.

Methods: Principal components analysis was used to construct four plant-level factors from responses to a 32 question survey of the entire workforce, administered in 2006.

Discrimination, harassment, abuse, and bullying in the workplace: contribution of workplace injustice to occupational health disparities.

Background: This paper synthesizes research on the contribution of workplace injustices to occupational health disparities.

Methods: We conducted a broad review of research and other reports on the impact of workplace discrimination, harassment, and bullying on workers' health and on family and job outcomes.

Results: Members of demographic minority groups are more likely to be victims of workplace injustice and suffer more adverse outcomes when exposed to workplace injustice compared to demographic majority groups.

Incidence and cost of depression after occupational injury.

Objectives: We examined if injured workers were more likely than noninjured workers to be treated for depression after an occupational injury and estimated the cost paid by group medical insurance.

Method: Nearly 367,900 injured and noninjured workers were drawn from the 2005 Thomson Reuters MarketScan data. Descriptive, logistic, and two-part model regression analyses were used.

Work and its role in shaping the social gradient in health.

Adults with better jobs enjoy better health: job title was, in fact, the social gradient metric first used to study the relationship between social class and chronic disease etiology, a core finding now replicated in most developed countries. What has been less well proved is whether this correlation is causal, and if so, through what mechanisms. During the past decade, much research has been directed at these issues.

Surveillance of occupational health disparities: challenges and opportunities.

Increasingly, the occupational health community is turning its attention to the effects of work on previously underserved populations, and researchers have identified many examples of disparities in occupational health outcomes. However, the occupational health status of some underserved worker populations is not described due to limitations in existing surveillance systems. As such, the occupational health community has identified the need to enhance and improve occupational health surveillance to describe the nature and extent of disparities in occupational illnesses and injuries (including fatalities), identify priorities for research and intervention, and evaluate trends.

Integrating occupational health with mainstream public health in Massachusetts: an approach to intervention.

In the late 19th century, workers' health was among the central concerns of the social reform movement to improve public health. Today, few state health agencies have comprehensive occupational health programs. Yet, state public health agencies have critical roles to play in occupational health and may be particularly instrumental in addressing the occupational health needs of underserved worker populations.