Psychosocial Working Conditions and Obesity Research in High Risk Occupations and Populations

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ahumada HT ; Champagne N ; Choi B ; Dobson M ; Kim H
• Description:
  It is well known that obesity (usually defined as the Body Mass Index, = 30 kg/m2) is a key risk factor for a wide range of chronic diseases and premature mortality. The economic costs of obesity have been estimated to be substantial (e.g., $ 147-190 billion per year only for obesity-related medical costs in the United States (US)) and now threatening the sustainability of societies like the United States (BPC, 2012) which is the heaviest country among the OECD countries. Relatively recent experimental and longitudinal epidemiological studies (for a summary, see Choi et al., 2012) have reported that adverse psychosocial working conditions (sedentary work, shift work, low job control, high psychological job demands, low social support at work, and long work hours) could increase the risk for obesity directly or indirectly via unhealthy behaviors (eating and leisure-time physical activity) in general working populations. These findings imply that if we would address adverse psychosocial working conditions as well as health behaviors of workers at the same time, there would be a much higher chance of sustaining success in preventing obesity among workers. This is in line with the rationale and vision of the recent NIOSH Total Worker Health approach for improving workers' health. However, current US national recommendations for prevention of obesity at worksites (e.g., the 2012 APOP report by the Institute of Medicine and CDC's Lean Work! website) do not fully embrace the aforementioned perspective. The recommendations are made largely based on individual-based health behavior models, usually ignoring social, environmental, and cultural contexts of workers' health behaviors and the possibility that psychosocial working conditions increase the risk of obesity via non-behavioral (e.g., dysfunction of hypothalamus resulting from chronic strain suggested by Dr. Bjorntorp) pathways among workers. This symposium features several merits: 1) Our presentations collectively make a case that adverse psychosocial working conditions can affect obesity among workers directly and indirectly through health behaviors; 2) All our presentations deal with occupational and behavioral risk factors for obesity in high risk occupations and populations (firefighters and low wage workers in California and Massachusetts and service workers in Mexico City) that have been rarely reported in the literature or hardly captured in general working population surveys; and 3) Our presentations are very rich in terms of work and obesity research methodologies. The findings from our presentations are made based not only on typical self-administered cross-sectional questionnaire surveys, but also on qualitative inquires (focus groups, participatory action research, and open-ended questions) and the use of objective measures of physical activity and food/nutrition (actigraphs and food diary). [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Chronic Disease Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  BMI Body Mass Index Chronic Diseases Obesity Psychosocial Factors Total Worker Health TWH
• Publisher:
  American Psychological Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20056214
• Citation:
  Work, Stress, and Health 2013: Protecting and Promoting Total Worker Health(TM), The 10th International Conference on Occupational Stress and Health, May 16-19, 2013, Los Angeles, California. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2013 May; :1-2
• Contact Point Address:
  BongKyoo Choi, ScD, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Public Safety
• Performing Organization:
  University of California - Irvine
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20100901
• Source Full Name:
  Work, Stress, and Health 2013: Protecting and Promoting Total Worker Health(TM), The 10th International Conference on Occupational Stress and Health, May 16-19, 2013, Los Angeles, California
• End Date:
  20130831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:39dddfb636a8e471818eea8431c479253db2868b7e4530cf51b9495abda707cfeb824170ca0becadd063f04d09adb26a0594946bf7f0e2105cf2de2f6cd200cd
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/213866/cdc_213866_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 95.61 KB ]