Navigating a Context of Severe Uncertainty: The Effect of Industry Unsafety Signals on Employee Well-Being During the COVID-19 Crisis

Details

• Personal Author:
  Horan K ; LeNoble C ; Naranjo A ; Shoss M
• Description:
  Complex disaster situations like the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) create macro-level contexts of severe uncertainty that disrupt industries across the globe in unprecedented ways. While occupational health research has made important advances in understanding the effects of occupational stressors on employee well-being, there is a need to better understand the employee well-being implications of severe uncertainty stemming from macro-level disruption. We draw from the Generalized Unsafety Theory of Stress (GUTS) to explain how a context of severe uncertainty can create signals of economic and health unsafety at the industry level, leading to emotional exhaustion through paths of economic and health anxiety. We integrate recent disaster scholarship that classifies COVID-19 as a transboundary disaster and use this interdisciplinary perspective to explain how COVID-19 created a context of severe uncertainty from which these effects unfold. To test our proposed model, we pair objective industry data with time-lagged quantitative and qualitative survey responses from 212 employees across industries collected during the height of the initial COVID-19 response in the United States. Structural equation modeling results indicate a significant indirect effect of industry COVID-19 unsafety signals on emotional exhaustion through the health, but not economic, unsafety path. Qualitative analyses provide further insights into these dynamics. Theoretical and practical implications for employee well-being in a context of severe uncertainty are discussed. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Diseases Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Coronavirus Coronavirus COVID-19 Economic Anxiety Emotional Exhaustion Generalized Unsafety Health Anxiety Infectious Diseases Job Stress Mental Health Occupational Health Occupational Psychology Transboundary Disaster Worker Health

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• ISSN:
  2367-0134
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Florida ; Georgia ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  7
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20068539
• Citation:
  Occup Health Sci 2023 Dec; 7(4):707-743
• Contact Point Address:
  Chelsea LeNoble, Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA
• Email:
  Chelsea.lenoble@ucf.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2024
• Performing Organization:
  Sunshine Education and Research Center, University of South Florida
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational Health Science
• End Date:
  20290630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8fea3dffbbaeb1987017336488194dc8b110c7a394e38f180bf91979dd1f10e7214e5f2ff5aa5d38390b8c496250f4a4b147cb27c896effcac0cc01995cef009
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/207150/cdc_207150_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.18 MB ]