Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Original Article

Developing a short standard questionnaire for assessing work organization hazards: the Healthy Work Survey (HWS): BongKyoo Choi, Youngju Seo; Ann Occup Environ Med 2023;35:e7. Published online April 27, 2023; DOI: https://doi.org/10.35371/aoem.2023.35.e7

Abstract PDF Supplementary Material PubReader ePub: Background
At present, no short standard questionnaire exists for assessing and comparing major work organization hazards in the workplaces of the United States.
Methods
We conducted a series of psychometric tests (content validity, factor analysis, differential-item functioning analysis, reliability, and concurrent validity) to validate and identify core items and scales for major work organization hazards using the data from the 2002–2014 General Social Surveys (GSSs), including the Quality of Worklife (QWL) questionnaire. In addition, an extensive literature review was undertaken to find other major work organization hazards which were not addressed in the GSS.
Results
Although the overall validity of the GSS-QWL questionnaire was satisfactory in the psychometric tests, some GSS-QWL items of work-family conflict, psychological job demands, job insecurity, use of skills on the job, and safety climate scales appeared to be weak. In the end, 33 questions (31 GSS-QWL and 2 GSS) were chosen as the least, but best validated core questions and included in a new short standard questionnaire (called the Healthy Work Survey [HWS]). And their national norms were established for comparisons. Furthermore, based on the literature review, fifteen more questions for assessing other significant work organization hazards (e.g., lack of scheduling control, emotional demands, electronic surveillance, wage theft) were included in the new questionnaire. Thus, the HWS includes 48 questions in total for assessing traditional and emerging work organization hazards, which covers seven theoretical domains: work schedule/arrangement, control, support, reward, demands, safety, and justice.
Conclusions
The HWS is a short standard questionnaire for assessing work organization hazards which can be used as a first step toward the risk management of major work organization hazards in the workplaces of the US.

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Review

A socioecological framework for research on work and obesity in diverse urban transit operators based on gender, race, and ethnicity: BongKyoo Choi, Peter Schnall, Marnie Dobson, Haiou Yang, Dean Baker, YoungJu Seo; Ann Occup Environ Med 2017;29:15. Published online May 17, 2017; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40557-017-0171-2

Urban transit (bus and rail) operators, totaling nearly 700,000 persons, are one of the heaviest occupational groups in the United States (US). Little is known about occupational risk factors for weight gain and obesity and their interrelationship with health-related behaviors, particularly among female minority (African Americans and Hispanics) transit operators who are at greater risk for obesity. As a step towards developing successful obesity interventions among urban transit operators, this paper aims to present a new socioecological framework for studying working conditions, chronic strain, health-related behaviors, weight gain/obesity, and obesity disparity in diverse urban transit operators based on gender, race, and ethnicity. Our framework is a synthesis of several different theories and disciplines: the resource-work load model (work stress), occupational ergonomics, the theory of intersectionality, and worksite health promotion. The framework was developed utilizing an extensive literature review, results from our on-going research on obesity, input from focus groups conducted with Los Angeles transit operators as well as interviews and meetings with transit operator stakeholders (management, unions, and worksite transit wellness program), and ride-along observations. Our hypotheses highlighted in the framework (see Fig. 1) are that adverse working conditions, largely characterized as a combination of high demands and low resources, will increase the risk for weight gain/obesity among transit operators directly through chronic strain and hypothalamic dysfunction (hyper-and hypo-activations), and indirectly through health-related behaviors and injuries/chronic severe pain. We also hypothesize that the observed increase in adiposity among female minority operators is due to their greater exposure to adverse occupational and non-occupational conditions that reflect their intersecting social identities of lower social class and being a minority woman in the US. Our proposed framework could greatly facilitate future transit worksite obesity studies by clarifying the complex and important roles of adverse working conditions in the etiology of weight gain/obesity and obesity disparity among transit operators and other working populations.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

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