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With globalization, computerization, and accompanying fast-paced work environments, employees often work under high production pressure and in the context of heightened job insecurity. Although these hostile work conditions often co-occur, their negative synergetic effects have been rarely examined. This study aimed to investigate whether these two hostile work environments (i.e., high production pressure coupled with a qualitative job insecurity climate) are related to workplace cognitive failures and subsequent injuries. In particular, we tested the mediating role of cognitive failures in the above-mentioned relationships as well as the interaction effect between the two hostile work environments on cognitive failures. Using 1-month lagged survey data from N = 176 U.S. workers, we found that both production pressure and qualitative job insecurity climate were significantly and positively associated with cognitive failures, which in turn were related to injuries. Further, it was revealed that workers experienced more cognitive failures in response to production pressure when they perceived higher levels of qualitative job insecurity climate compared to workplaces that reported lower levels of qualitative job insecurity climate. We discuss these results in light of their contributions to advancing theoretical understanding of the multiplicative effect of job demands and the practical implications for workers' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduates of industrial hygiene training (IH) programs must be able to meet continuously evolving health and safety needs in a wide variety of occupational settings. Therefore, academic IH graduate programs must regularly evaluate their curricula and solicit input from industry professionals to make curricular changes that will better prepare their students for professional roles in industry. The purpose of this study was to identify the training gaps that existed between industry needs and the current curriculum for a United States-accredited IH graduate training program. The research team facilitated two group interviews with the IH program advisory board, collected alumni survey data, and performed a qualitative analysis to identify skills gaps/needs for the IH Program graduates. The research team identified 3 themes from participant interviews and alumni surveys (technical, applied, and essential skills) and selected several skills within each theme that interview participants thought were necessary proficiencies for junior IH professionals. The skills identified in the qualitative interview and survey data can be incorporated into the curriculum to improve the training of IH graduate students. Additionally, by using qualitative analysis, the researchers uncovered essential skills previously unidentified in IH needs assessments, providing valuable information for all IH graduate programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed how hospitalists frame workplace safety, health, and well-being (SHW); their perception of hospital supports for SHW; and whether and how they are sharing leadership responsibility for each other's SHW. Our findings highlight the important role of local support for hospitalist SHW and reveal the systemic, hospital-wide problems that may impede their SHW. We believe that positioning hospitalists as leaders for SHW will result in systems-wide changes in practices to support the SHW of all care team members. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S2):S162–S166. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307573) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study examined the occupational health and safety (OHS) issues that impact environmental public health workforces across various health departments in the U.S. The objective was to generate an OHS risk profile for the workforce to inform future preventative strategies. Data for our study were collected via a cross-sectional online survey (N = 158) supplemented by a virtual focus group (N = 7) discussion to confirm and explore some of the themes and data items that emerged from the survey. Descriptive statistics were used to provide information about the variables in the data sets and to identify relationships between them. Nonparametric tests were used to determine statistical significance between two or more variables that were not normally distributed. Focus group data were analyzed thematically. Our study indicates that the environmental health (EH) workforce in the U.S. is exposed to a range of significant workplace hazards. Some of the OHS concerns identified in our study are similar to those observed in Australia and New Zealand. Biological and chemical exposures appear to be important hazards; however, further study is required to determine the nature and mechanism of these hazards within the EH workforce. Furthermore, our study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the health and safety of EH professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]