1984 Hypertension, Detection and Follow-up Program Article
Dear Colleagues,
With some effort we were finally able to retrieve an article (click here for pdf) written by Peter Schnall and Michael Alderman in 1984 making available evidence from the Hypertension, Detection and Follow-up Program (HDFP) clinical trial of hypertension drugs. This paper demonstrates that white men and white women with very elevated blood pressure did poorly in response to treatment in the HDFP trial. Please keep in mind that this remains a controversial issue as significant side effects occur from the treatment of mild hypertension (blood pressures of 140/90 remains undemonstrated, see 2010 Cochrane report on mild hypertension).
Best wishes,
Peter Schnall MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine, U.C. at Irvine
Director, Center for Social Epidemiology
Second Congress of the Americas on Psychosocial Stress and Mental Health Factors at Work (RIFAPT) – Mexico City, MX – October 14 – 17, 2014
October 14 – 17, 2014
Metropolitan Autonomous University XochimilcoFederal District, Mexico.
website: http://factorespsicosociales.com/congreso/
Little more than six years have passed since the initial activities of the Research Network on Psychosocial Factors in the AC Working During this time he promoted the first three videos of the Americas on Psychosocial Factors: Cuernavaca, Morelos, 2006, Guadalajara, Jalisco, 2008 , and Mexico City, 2010.
So, the project matured and attention to the impact of the event, so I called the Fourth Forum transitional and First Congress in Bogotá, Colombia in 2012.
From there it has agreed to call Congress to the following events. In these successful academic meetings, topics and proposals developed have enabled sets bring together researchers, professionals and workers in the Americas around the discussion and development of proposals sponsoring the implementation of workspaces safe, healthy and satisfying, to prevent the harmful impacts on mental and organic integrity of workers.
Since the last century, a result of global deployment of capital and the crisis with recurrent rallies, working atmospheres have become more complex to the extent that huge population stripes that once contributed to the development of societies through their work, are expelled or not allowed more in the workplace.
Consequently, there is now a growing flood of unemployed, lacking multiplication of informal jobs both benefits and coverage for health groups to which an increasing number of young people adds no possibility of formal employment.
CENTRAL THEME:
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Analysis of the role that neoliberal globalization on working conditions and dehumanization.
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Theoretical and methodological research contributions of psychosocial conditions and health consequences of formal and informal workers.
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Analysis of the role that labor-crises as a result of globalization-has on job insecurity and its effects on subjective and objective of the work content and the identity of the subjects.
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Implemented policies on working conditions and health Mental health reform and labor reform.
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Evaluation of intervention models for the prevention of psychosocial risks and their effects on health.
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Union participation in research, prevention and psychosocial risks and their effects on health.
1st International Symposium to Advance TOTAL WORKER HEALTH – Bethesda, MD – October 6 – 8, 2014
Call For Abstracts – Now Open 
Submission Deadline: March 24, 2014
About the Conference
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is pleased to announce the International Symposium to Advance TOTAL WORKER HEALTH™. Mark your calendar to join us October 6 – 8, 2014 in Bethesda, MD on the historic and healthy campus of the National Institutes of Health.
This symposium will explore research, practices, programs and policies that advance the overall health, safety, and well-being of workers through the integration of health protection and health promotion. It will seek to advance the tenets of Total Worker Health™. It builds upon successful past meetings of the 2004 NIOSH Steps to a Healthier US Workforce Conference and the 2007 NIOSH WorkLife National Symposium. Additional details on the NIOSH Total Worker Health Program can be found at www.cdc.gov/niosh/twh
Conference Theme
Total Worker Health is a strategy integrating occupational safety and health protection with health promotion to prevent worker injury and illness and to advance health and well-being. This approach recognizes that both work-related factors and factors beyond the workplace contribute jointly to the numerous health and safety challenges facing today’s workers. Thetotal worker health strategy champions interventions that comprehensively address work and non-work threats and determinants in a harmonized way. Health protection activities and health promotion programs, which have often been traditionally compartmentalized, can be successfully coordinated and combined for greater effectiveness.
To learn more about the concept of total worker health, refer to the following sources:
- NIOSH Total Worker Health Program Website
- Total Worker Health Supplement, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, December 2013
- Conference Proceedings from Work, Stress and Health 2013: Protecting and Promoting Total Worker Health™
- The Research Compendium: The NIOSH Total Worker Health™ Program: Seminal Research Papers 2012
Attendees
This symposium will explore subjects, themes and concepts of great interest to researchers and practitioners in the following areas: workplace health, human resources, organized labor, benefits, occupational safety, disability managements, health promotion, public health, health policy, health economics, organizational and occupational health psychology, industrial hygiene, employee assistance, emergency response, workers’ compensation, and related disciplines.
Contact Us
For questions regarding the International Symposium to Advance TOTAL WORKER HEALTH™, please email us attwh@cdc.gov
International Commission of Occupational Health, Work, Organisation and Psychosocial Factors (ICOH-WOPS) – Adelaide, Australia – Sept 17-19, 2014
Exploring Occupational and Behavioral Risk Factors for Obesity in Urban Bus Drivers
Abstract:
About 4 million motor vehicle operators, including 0.7 million bus drivers are among the heaviest occupational groups in the United States. Little is known about occupational and behavioral risk factors for obesity among bus drivers, particularly minority (African-American and Hispanic) urban bus drivers. Also, few validated instruments are available for research on work and obesity among bus drivers. The ultimate goal of this study is to design and conduct effective and sustainable worksite obesity intervention studies that lower the risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease in urban bus drivers. The specific aims of this study, based on a participatory action research approach and with multiple research methods, are to a) continue to expand the ongoing collaboration between a multidisciplinary research team at the UC Irvine Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (UCI COEH), the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (LACMTA), the local union of the United Transportation Union (UTU), and the United Transportation Union – Metropolitan Transportation Authority Trust Fund (UTU-MTA Trust Fund) Wellness Program to form a Research Advisory Committee, b) to conduct six interviews, walk-throughs, and six focus groups (in total, up to 60 bus drivers) at LACMTA division offices or the LACMTA headquarters with bus drivers and other key informants in management, union, and the wellness program to identify and prioritize the specific working conditions and health-related behaviors associated with obesity among LACMTA bus drivers, and c) develop a bus driver work and health questionnaire based on existing surveys and an extensive literature review that will be culturally sensitive to the diversity of LACMTA bus drivers and will be further tested and used in future epidemiological observational and intervention studies. This study meets several research strategic goals of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA).
Specific Aims:
There are about 4 million motor vehicle operators, including 0.7 million bus drivers in the United States [1-2]. Obesity, an excessive accumulation of body fat, is a key health issue among bus drivers who have a high risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) [3-4]. Bus drivers along with other motor vehicle operators were the first and second rank in prevalence of obesity among 41 male and female occupational groups in the United States [1]. Bus drivers (n=4,772) in the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (LACMTA) also have a very high percentage (86%) of African American and Hispanic drivers, whose risk of obesity and cardiovascular mortality is high compared to other ethnic groups. Little is known about occupational and behavioral risk factors for obesity and CVD among bus drivers, especially minorities. In addition, few validated instruments are available for research on work and obesity among bus drivers. The ultimate goals of this pilot study are to improve the cardiovascular health of bus drivers at the LACMTA and to reduce health disparity among working populations with diverse ethnic backgrounds by designing and conducting effective worksite obesity intervention studies. The specific aims of our study, based on a participatory action research (PAR) approach and with multiple research methods, are to a) continue to expand the ongoing collaboration between UC Irvine researchers, the LACMTA and the local union of the United Transportation Union (UTU) to form a Research Advisory Committee, b) to conduct interviews, walk-throughs, and focus groups with bus drivers and other key informants in management, the union, and the wellness program to identify and prioritize the specific working conditions and health-related behaviors associated with obesity among LACMTA bus drivers, and c) develop a bus driver work and health questionnaire that will be used in future epidemiological and intervention studies and will be culturally sensitive to the diversity of LACMTA bus drivers.
Background and Significance:
Why We Need To Learn More About Occupational and Behavioral Risk Factors For Obesity In Urban Bus Drivers. Obesity is a serious public health issue in the general population and among workers in the United States (US) [1, 5, 6]. Obesity has been well documented as a key risk factor for a wide range of chronic diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, osteoarthritis, dyslipidemia, Type II diabetes, some cancers as well as increased mortality [7, 8]. Despite the high obesity prevalence rate among bus drivers, there have been few observational or intervention studies on bus drivers and obesity. To the best of our knowledge, only one cross-sectional epidemiological study [9] specifically examined significant differences in some health-related behaviors between normal weight and obese bus drivers in the Metro Transit Council of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While the study identified some behavioral risk factors for obesity among the bus drivers (e.g., less moderate or vigorous level of physical activity, more time sitting, more time watching television, and more frequent intake of soft drinks), the study was very limited in identifying the occupational risk factors which can affect adiposity of bus drivers directly or indirectly via or in combination with health-related behaviors among bus drivers. Ignoring structural barriers to healthy behaviors likely results in, at best a moderate success of obesity prevention among working populations in the short term, and in the long term the success cannot be maintained [10, 11]. In addition, worksite interventions targeting physical activity and dietary behaviors with a work environment component, albeit still scarce, have been found to be more effective in reducing weight than those without a work environment component [12].
There is emerging evidence that several adverse psychosocial working conditions can increase the risk for obesity among working populations (for review, see [13-15]). This was the case in our recently completed NIOSH funded project (called hereafter the FORWARD study) on work and obesity with firefighters who worked for Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). Bus drivers have similar adverse psychosocial working conditions to firefighters: e.g., shift work [split-shift, a work shift is divided into two time zones (morning and afternoon) with an in-between non-work time], long work hours (up to 15 hours per day in the LAC-MTA workers); prolonged sedentary work, time pressure, low decision authority, and poor social relationships with coworkers supervisors, and customers) [3-4]. Additional stressful working conditions of bus drivers (e.g., violence from passengers; threat-avoidance vigilance; traffic and road conditions; work and family conflict; mechanical problems with the buses; poor safety climate; and labor-management relationship) [3-4] may contribute to increasing the risk for obesity among bus drivers.
A few articles of interest:
Exploring Occupational and Behavioral Risk Factors for Obesity in Firefighters: A Theoretical Framework and Study Design
Exploring Occupational and Health Behavioral Causes of Firefighter Obesity: A Qualitative Study
2014 UCLA Work and Health Course Slides
Please click on the link above to access course slides.
2014 UCLA Work and Health Course Syllabus
2014 UCLA Work and Health Course Readings
Session 1
Optional:
Session 2
Beyond the Individual: Connecting Work Environment and Health. (Chapter 1) Gordon, D, Schnall, P., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E, Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009.
Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity and the Reconstruction of Working Life, pp.1-31
Session 3
Session 4
Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Cost of Adaption
Session 5
Suggested Readings:
Session 6
The Workplace and Cardiovascular Disease. (Chapter 6) Landsbergis, P., Schnall, P., Dobson, M., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp. 89 – 101.
Lancet letter to the editor and author’s reply: Job strain and coronary heart disease
From Stress to Distress: The Impact of Work on Mental Health. (Chapter 7) Dobson, M., Schnall, P., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp. 113 – 127.
Suggested Reading:
Interventions. In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp. 169-172
Interventions to reduce job stress and improve work organization and worker health. (Chapter 11) Landsbergis, P.A., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009, pp. 193-209
Session 9
The Health and Economic Costs of “Unhealthy” Work, In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp. 87 – 88
Work, Psychosocial Stressors and the Bottom Line. (Chapter 9) Jauregui, M, Schnall P, In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp.153 – 165.
Stakeholder Perspectives on Work and Stress: Seeking Common Ground. (Chapter 10) Gordon, D, Jauregui, M, Schnall, P., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009. pp. 173 – 190.
Session 10
Curing Unhealthy Work. (Chapter 19) Schnall, PL, Dobson, M, Rosskam, E, Landsbergis, P., In Schnall PL, Dobson M, Rosskam E., Editors Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood Publishing, 2009.
Hot Topic : The Tokyo Declaration on Prevention and Management of Work- Related Cardiovascular Disorders
Please click here for the full PDF file.
Adopted by the Plenary of the Sixth ICOH International Conference on Work Environment and Cardiovascular Diseases under the auspices of the ICOH Scientific Committee on Cardiology in Occupational Health in Tokyo, Japan on March 30th 2013.
Cardiovascular disorders (CVDs) constitute a major burden for health of working populations throughout the world with as much as 50% of all causes of death and at least 25% of work disability. According to research data about 10 to 20% of all causes of CVD deaths among the working age populations can be attributed to work, i.e. are work-related. The loss of work days and work ability is likely to be substantially greater.
While CVD mortality is declining in developed countries, trends in incidence and prevalence are not parallel across age- and gender-groups, geographical areas, sectors of the economy or among certain occupational groups. In industrialized countries, while CVD mortality and myocardial infarction incidence are decreasing, some data indicate that if the acute coronary syndrome are included in the endpoint, the trends get flat, having as a net effect the increase in prevalence of the chronic forms of the disease, with its consequences in terms of returns to work.
Also there are some changes in CVD incidence among occupational classes. This is mainly due to the new types of work-related causes of morbidity associated with the recent developments in global work life; particularly in the industrialized countries, which give rise to psychosocial and physical risk factors in the work environment such as growing competition and time pressures, productivity pressures, continuous organisational changes, re-engineering and downsizing, lean production, job insecurity and threat of unemployment, introduction of new technologies and increase of sedentary work, changing patterns of working hours and partially extensive working hours. Meanwhile, in the developing countries or those in transition (e.g., Eastern Europe), CVD mortality is increasing due to major socioeconomic changes, the demographic transition and rapid industrialisation and urbanisation all leading to growing challenges to cardiovascular health.
Ageing of working populations and life style risk factors such as low-level physical activity during leisure time enhance the risk of CVDs and are often in complex interaction with the work-related factors. For example, certain working conditions may be important determinants of obesity, due to sedentary labour and promotion of unhealthy behaviours at work (e.g., stress-related eating) and through them, determinants of workers’ cardiovascular health as well.
Available research data suggest that about 80% of CVD mortality is preventable if the existing knowledge could be effectively used for system-wide implementation of prevention and health promotion programmes. Some countries have shown convincing examples of such system- wide impact.
The obstacles of achieving such wide-scale impact are less due to lack of knowledge or standardised methods than to lack of awareness, lack of policies and their implementation into practice and shortage of infrastructures and human resources needed for wide-scale and long-term programme implementation.
Additional Readings of Interest
In Defense of Neoliberalism Part 1
In Defense of Neoliberalism Part 2
In Defense of Neoliberalism Part 3
by Mike Doyle
Welcome to the website of the Center for Social Epidemiology. The purpose of this site is to bring together, for public dissemination, information about and related to Work Stress and Cures.
Visit The Center of Social Epidemiology.
Visit the Working on Empty film.
Visit the Healthy Work Campaign.
