Data Brief: Putting Data to Work: Health Indicators by Occupation and Industry. Findings from the MA Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Massachusetts. Department of Public Health
• Description:
  Over three million Massachusetts residents are employed in thousands of workplaces throughout the Commonwealth. While work is fundamental to well-being, working conditions can also negatively affect health. The work environment can have both direct and indirect adverse impacts on health. Direct impacts include workplace injuries and illnesses that occur as a result of exposure to hazards in the workplace such as toxic chemicals, dangerous equipment, and violence at work. There is also increasing evidence that work organization factors, such as shift work, long work hours, and jobs with high demand, low control and poor social support, impact health directly and can also indirectly affect health by influencing lifestyle behaviors - such as eating habits, leisure time exercise, and sleep, as well as ability to manage chronic diseases. Leave and benefit schedules can influence workers' access to healthcare as well as ability to care for dependents. This burden of occupational risks is not borne equally. It is widely recognized that low wage workers, including many immigrant and minority workers, are disproportionately employed in physically demanding, high risk jobs and in high stress positions -those that offer little opportunity to influence how or when they work. In short, work is an important determinant of health that needs to be taken into account in developing comprehensive approaches to improving population health and reducing health inequities. Many of our state health data systems include limited, if any, information about the employment status of individuals. To address this gap, Massachusetts has added questions about occupation and industry to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). In the report attached to this data brief, we present findings from the 2012-2013 Massachusetts BRFSS surveys on 23 key health indicators by occupation and industry groups. The 23 health indicators are grouped into three categories - health access, health outcomes, and health behaviors. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Behavior Occupational Health Public Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Injuries Occupations Public Health Risk Factors Stress Surveillance Work Environment Work Organization
• Publisher:
  Massachusetts Department of Public Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061226
• Citation:
  Boston, MA: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2016 Jan; :1-3
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• Performing Organization:
  Massachusetts State Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Data brief: putting data to work: health indicators by occupation and industry. Findings from the MA Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1552d264730458cf7632962910fe12ed3fc335206d8d845894924a7554419aa009afc8f79a0c1d4a9f4287fa98f137dba50b4cdfa5cbe4aa139bebc891bc1b71
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/224833/cdc_224833_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 147.10 KB ]