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What is healthy work?
Healthy work minimizes harmful work stressors (sources of stress at work) that take a toll on the health and productivity of working people. Healthy work is respectful, just, more sustainable, and promotes health and well-being.
What is unhealthy work?
Unhealthy work is a shorthand term for work organized in a way which chronically exposes working people to work stressors.
The culture and organization of work in the US exposes individuals to a number of work stressors that are found in every occupation and industry, and that can cause illness.
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Principles of Healthy Work
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A healthy work environment should be free of physical hazards. These include safety and mechanical hazards, toxic chemicals, noise, radiation, infectious diseases, extremes of heat and cold, ergonomic design hazards (e.g., heavy lifting, prolonged standing and computer work without adjustable equipment).
All organizations have a “culture” that reflects the values and practices of its leaders and supervisors. A workplace’s “climate” reflects how managers and workers relate to each other, the organization’s policies and practices, and how respectfully and fairly workers are treated. A positive work climate can reduce work stressors and improve your health and well-being.31
How management organizes tasks and work in general (work organization) includes many things. It can cover: employment arrangements (e.g., full/part-time, employee, contractor/temp worker); staffing decisions or practices (e.g., lean production); downsizing and restructuring practices; work hours, shifts, and schedules (e.g. on-call, irregular schedule, forced overtime). Psychosocial work stressors are a consequence of how work is organized5 and are linked to poor mental and physical health, and chronic disease, higher healthcare costs and loss of productivity.6
Rewards are the economic and other benefits (e.g., promotions, seniority status, job security, support, and respect) that are the expected outcome of work. When rewards do not match the required effort or responsibility of a job, this is a major stressor (i.e., “effort-reward imbalance”). Fair pay and living wages, access to paid time off to use preventive care, or when you’re sick or to take care of family, and adequate health insurance and retirement benefits—all are necessary, along with reducing work stressors, for the overall health of working people and to lower the risk of illness, disease and early death.7
A healthy work environment should be free of physical hazards. These include safety and mechanical hazards, toxic chemicals, noise, radiation, infectious diseases, extremes of heat and cold, ergonomic design hazards (e.g., heavy lifting, prolonged standing and computer work without adjustable equipment).
All organizations have a “culture” that reflects the values and practices of its leaders and supervisors. A workplace’s “climate” reflects how managers and workers relate to each other, the organization’s policies and practices, and how respectfully and fairly workers are treated. A positive work climate can reduce work stressors and improve your health and well-being.31
How management organizes tasks and work in general (work organization) includes many things. It can cover: employment arrangements (e.g., full/part-time, employee, contractor/temp worker); staffing decisions or practices (e.g., lean production); downsizing and restructuring practices; work hours, shifts, and schedules (e.g. on-call, irregular schedule, forced overtime). Psychosocial work stressors are a consequence of how work is organized5 and are linked to poor mental and physical health, and chronic disease, higher healthcare costs and loss of productivity.6
Rewards are the economic and other benefits (e.g., promotions, seniority status, job security, support, and respect) that are the expected outcome of work. When rewards do not match the required effort or responsibility of a job, this is a major stressor (i.e., “effort-reward imbalance”). Fair pay and living wages, access to paid time off to use preventive care, or when you’re sick or to take care of family, and adequate health insurance and retirement benefits—all are necessary, along with reducing work stressors, for the overall health of working people and to lower the risk of illness, disease and early death.7
Note: All reference numbers in the above tool direct you to the Research Articles section on our Research page.
It’s time for #healthywork in the U.S.
Costs of Unhealthy Work
Costs to
Individuals
Costs to
Employers
Work stressors (such as high job demands/low job control, work-family conflict, job insecurity) pose a threat to your physical and mental health, increasing your risk for burnout, depression, high blood pressure and heart disease, and can shorten your life by up to 3 years.Goh, Pfeffer and Zenios. Exposure To Harmful Workplace Practices Could Account For Inequality In Life Spans Across Different Demographic Groups. Health Affairs, 34, no.10 (2015):1761-1768
Poor work organization and work culture create work stressors that contribute to poorer mental and physical health. They also lead to higher healthcare costs, more sick leave, and decreased engagement, work quality, and productivity. Jauregui and Schnall. Work, Psychosocial Stressors and the Bottom Line. In: Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Baywood, 2009.Work stress is estimated to cost employers (directly and indirectly) in the hundreds of billions per year.
Costs of Unhealthy Work
Costs To Individuals

Work stressors (such as high job demands/low job control, work-family conflict, job insecurity) pose a threat to your physical and mental health, increasing your risk for burnout, depression, high blood pressure and heart disease, and can shorten your life by up to 3 years.8
Costs To Employers

Poor work organization and work culture create work stressors that contribute to poorer mental and physical health. They also lead to higher healthcare costs, more sick leave, and decreased engagement, work quality, and productivity. Work stress is estimated to cost employers (directly and indirectly) in the hundreds of billions per year.6
What You Can Do
LEARN about (un)healthy work and solutions to it,
ASSESS the level of work stressors in your workplace,
EQUIP yourself or your organization with healthy work tools,
TAKE ACTION that advances #healthywork for all.
Articles

Air Travel and the Pandemic: an Epidemiologist’s Perspective
by Peter Schnall, MD, MPH*
Prior to COVID-19, I was a frequent flyer: traveling internationally almost monthly for both work and personal reasons, and logging more than one million miles in the past decade. As a physician/epidemiologist, I have had a research and public health focus on working conditions and their impact on physical and mental health for the past 30 years. During plane trips, when passengers beside me asked me what I did for a living, I would talk with them about the impact of work on health, question them about their jobs, and of course, answer many questions they had about how work might impact their health.

Reopening Schools: Mental health vs Health & Safety?
by Marnie Dobson Zimmerman, Ph.D., & Pouran Faghri, M.D.
During the past few weeks in the U.S., the debate over school reopenings in the Fall, in light of COVID-19 surges, has been fever pitched. The negative mental health and academic impacts of social distancing and online learning on children are given as reasons to reopen schools despite being in the midst of an out-of-control pandemic. But while these are real, legitimate concerns, do they outweigh the risks to the health and safety of children, families, and teachers returning to classrooms amid a surge?

Freelance and Gig Work during COVID-19
By Marnie Dobson Zimmerman, Ph.D.*
Sarah** has been a self-employed/independent contractor/small business owner for many years now and has encountered slow periods of work in the past. Freelancers are used to the ups and downs of gig work, but this is the first time she and many other gig workers have experienced a complete shutdown in work opportunities. Sarah’s profession requires close in-person contact which cannot be performed remotely and is considered “non-essential” according to the Stay-at-Home orders issued by her state to reduce the spread of COVID-19. No work also means zero income.
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