News Updates

The American Psychological Association and the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health (APA-NIOSH) Work, Stress, and Health 2021 virtual conference starts tomorrow 9/14 and 9/15.

For a schedule of the online events and to register (at much reduced virtual conference rates), go to the website. Our colleagues Peter Schnall and David LeGrande will be featured speakers on Session 4: Workplace Stress and Recovery on Wednesday, September 15th, 3:30-5pm EST.

“The Accidental safety Pro Podcast,” hosted by Jill James, published their podcast interview with HWC Director Dr. Marnie Dobson about work stress and how it relates to workplace health and safety.

“Through her years of research and analyzing results of work stress, we learn if it is, in fact, an epidemic. Although it can seem impossible to get rid of stress altogether, Dr. Dobson leaves us with solutions and resources to lower work stress in any industry.”

Listen to the podcast episode here, and let us know what you think via or social media.

On Labor Day, we officially launched our Healthy Work Survey for Organizations, which is the follow-up to the previously released HWS for Individuals posted online in January 2021. This new tool assesses work stressors now with an organizational-level report when administered to a group.

To learn more about our new survey and report, read today’s HWC media release and watch our HWC Survey for Organizations Launch Video.

Request access to the survey through the Survey for Employers page and the Survey for Unions & Worker Advocates page.

In case you missed it, on June 25th, 2021, Healthy Work Campaign colleague Laura Punnett presented as part of the Suramericana webinar series on Work, Stress, & Health. The topic of this week’s webinar was re: the Consequences of work stress for organizations.

Laura Punnett is a researcher from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her work focuses on Occupational Safety and Health. She has experience in the study of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, as well as epidemiological methods for analyzing and interpreting exposures and risks related to work organization. She has published more than 200 scientific articles.

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.