News Updates

On Friday July 9, 2021, Healthy Work Campaign co-directors, Dr. Peter Schnall and Dr. Marnie Dobson, and Sebastian Segura from Prax, co-presented a webinar for the Suramericana webinar series on Work, Stress, & Health. The topic of this week’s webinar presented to over 500 participants, was “Ideas and Resources for Intervention on Occupational Psychosocial Risks” and is the 8th presentation in this ten part series. It is available on YouTube for viewing in English or with English or Spanish subtitles here.  We are very excited to be part of this international collaborative effort to address potential strategies and solutions to prevent or reduce psychosocial work stressors in the workplace.

On June 18th, 2021, Healthy Work Campaign Co-Director Dr. Marnie Dobson presented a webinar on “Mental/Psychological Problems caused by Occupational Psychosocial Risk Factors.” The webinar presentation was part of the “Work, health, stress” virtual education series organized by, Sebastian Segura of Prax, Dr. Viviola Gómez, the HWC Senior Strategist for Latin American Outreach, and the Center for Social Epidemiology, for Suramericana, an insurance company in Colombia.

You can access Marnie’s presentation on YouTube (#5 in the webinar series playlist), where she speaks on the occupational psychosocial risk factors that contribute to the growing mental health epidemic around the world. On June 11th, Dr. Arturo Juarez presented a webinar regarding the burnout syndrome which can also be accessed on YouTube (in Spanish).

You may access the remaining line-up of restricted webinars (to be publicly posted on YouTube after the live presentations) at the conference website. Also, you may learn more about Prax and Suramericana on Peter Schnall’s June 2nd blog on the subject.

On June 4th, 2021, Healthy Work Campaign Co-Director Dr. Peter Schnall presented a webinar as part of the “Work, health stress” virtual education series organized by our Healthy Work Survey collaborator, Sebastian Segura of Prax, an insurance company in Colombia, and Viviola Gómez, the HWC Senior Strategist for Latin American Outreach and Spanish Language Content Development.

You can access Peter’s presentation at this YouTube video (#3 in the webinar series playlist), where he speaks on the physical consequences caused by occupational psychosocial risk factors. Elsewhere in the YouTube playlist, you can access presentations by internationally renowned occupational health researchers Johannes Siegrist (5/21/21) and Robert Karasek (5/28/21).

You may access the remaining line-up of restricted webinars (to be publicly posted on YouTube after the live presentations) at the conference website. Also, you may learn more about Prax and Peter’s thoughts on the collaboration at his June 2nd blog on the subject.

On May 28th, 2021, Healthy Work Campaign Director Dr. Marnie Dobson presented on the Healthy Work Survey for Organizations, as part of a larger webinar by our campaign partner Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers: “WMH Resource Updates from OHCOW & Partners” during their “Mayday, Mayday Workplace Mental Health Series 2021.”

You can access Marnie’s presentation at this YouTube video (#15 in the webinar playlist), where she shares updates on the campaign and our Healthy Work Survey for Organizations.

UCLA and UC Irvine announced our April 1st editorial in JOEM*:

• On 4/1, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health published this article*
• On 4/20, UC Irvine News published this article*

*”COVID-19 Pandemic: What Has Work Got to Do With It?” by HWC Team researchers Pouran Faghri, Marnie Dobson, Paul Landsbergis, and Peter Schnall, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (April 2021 – Volume 63 – Issue 4)

HWC Team publishes op-ed in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM): “COVID-19 Pandemic: What Has Work Got to Do With It?”

To access the editorial printed in the JOEM April 2021 – Volume 63 – Issue 4 – p e245-e249, visit:  https://journals.lww.com/joem/Fulltext/2021/04000/COVID_19_Pandemic__What_Has_Work_Got_to_Do_With.21.aspx.

To access our press release on the editorial, visit: HWC Media Release – JOEM article_Work Stress Makes COVID Worse (master) FINAL 040621.

The HWC launched the Healthy Work Survey for Individuals today. Access this free, anonymous tool at http://bit.ly/HWSurvey-Individuals. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and it assesses the level of work stressors you are experiencing in your work or workplace. If you choose to provide your email address, a free report of your results will be emailed to you.

Marnie Dobson, Ph.D. and Pouran Faghri, M.D. wrote “Reopening Schools: Ensuring Healthy Work for K-12 Educators” for the Center for the Promotion of Health – New England (a Total Worker Health Center of Excellence at UMASS-Lowell) newsletter. They begin:

“School reopening during COVID-19 is a worker health and safety issue. This August-September, thousands of teachers and staff and their unions were concerned about being forced back into classrooms by state and local governments, some in districts which did not follow recommended CDC guidelines regarding physical distancing or mask-wearing. While many of the largest school districts in the country decided to begin the school year in online learning, many other schools even in regions with a high level of virus transmission that tried to open in-person, experienced outbreaks and were forced to close again.” Continue reading here

Paul Landsbergis presented at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Workshop: “Work as a Social Determinant of Disease” Video of the workshop is available here.

Marnie Dobson presented “The Healthy Work Campaign: Strategies for Preventing Work Stressors to Improve Worker Health & Well-being” at the Virtual TWH Affiliate Meeting (South-East Region) – Miami Occupational Research Group – University of Miami.