Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health

OBJECTIVES: This study investigates the associations between the Danish version of a job exposure matrix for COVID-19 (COVID-19-JEM) and Danish register-based SARS-CoV-2 infection information across three waves of the pandemic. The COVID-19-JEM consists of four dimensions on transmission: two on mitigation measures, and two on precarious work characteristics. METHODS: The study comprised 2 021 309 persons from the Danish working population between 26 February 2020 and 15 December 2021...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to systematically review the effectiveness of organizational-level interventions in improving the psychosocial work environment and workers' health and retention. METHODS: We conducted an overview of systematic reviews on organizational-level interventions published between 2000 and 2020. We systematically searched academic databases, screened reference lists, and contacted experts, yielding 27 736 records. Of the 76 eligible reviews, 24 of weak quality were excluded, yielding 52 reviews of moderate (N=32) or strong (N=20) quality, covering 957 primary studies...

OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the short-term associations between in-vehicle ultrafine particles (UFP) and black carbon (BC) concentrations and irritation symptoms and lung parameters of taxi drivers, pre- and post-lockdown. METHODS: As part of PUF-TAXI project, 33 taxi drivers were followed up during two typical working days. In-vehicle UFP and BC were continuously measured by monitoring instruments. Irritation symptoms during the working day were reported via an auto-questionnaire and lung function was assessed by a portable spirometer, pre- and post- work shift...

OBJECTIVES: In a cohort of workers disabled by a work-related injury or illness, this study aimed to: (i) compare pre-injury prevalence estimates for common chronic conditions to chronic condition prevalence in a representative sample of working adults; (ii) calculate the incidence of chronic conditions post-injury; and (iii) estimate the association between persistent pain symptoms and the incidence of common chronic conditions. METHODS: Eighteen months post-injury, 1832 workers disabled by a work-related injury or illness in Ontario, Canada, completed an interviewer-administered survey...

OBJECTIVES: Patients with idiopathic inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IIRD) often have decreased working capacity resulting in indirect costs. However, data on patients' short-term sick leave has been limited. This retrospective cohort study evaluated the number and length of sick leave, including short-term leave, and occupational healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) of the working-aged patients with IIRD compared to controls. METHODS: The data on sick leave and occupational HCRU were gathered from the electronic medical records of the largest occupational healthcare provider in Finland from January 2012 to December 2019...

OBJECTIVES: COVID-19 mitigations have had a profound impact on workplaces, however, multisectoral comparisons of how work-related mitigations were applied are limited. This study aimed to investigate (i) occupational differences in the usage of key work-related mitigations over time and (ii) workers' perceptions of these mitigations. METHODS: Employed/self-employed Virus Watch study participants (N=6279) responded to a mitigation-related online survey covering the periods of December 2020-February 2022...

OBJECTIVE: Despite decades of burnout research, clinical validated cut-off scores that discriminate between those who suffer from burnout and those who don't are still lacking. To establish such cut-off scores, the current study uses a newly developed questionnaire, the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) that consists of four subscales (exhaustion, mental distancing, and emotional and cognitive impairment). Separate cut-offs were computed for those at risk for burnout and those suffering from severe burnout for the original BAT-23 as well as for the shortened BAT-12...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVES: Mental well-being is critical to quality of life. Workplace mental well-being is crucial to ensure employee health, satisfaction, and performance. Mental ill-health is a global challenge, costing workplaces $17 billion per year. Workplaces have realized the need for investment in interventions to promote mental health and well-being in their workforce. However, given their limited resources, workplace personnel responsible for program implementation need evidence-based guidance on which interventions influence which outcomes...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the effects of occupational exposures on the risk of a positive COVID-19 test, and whether this differed across pandemic waves. METHODS: Data from 207 034 workers from The Netherlands with test data on COVID-19 from June 2020 until August 2021 were available. Occupational exposure was estimated by using the eight dimensions of a COVID-19 job exposure matrix (JEM). Personal characteristics, household composition and residence area were derived from Statistics Netherlands...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVES: Working few hours a week, known as marginal part-time work, may increase both job and income insecurity, which have been linked to the risk of depression. This study examines the association between marginal part-time work and depression and the mediating role of job and income insecurity. METHODS: We included 30 523 respondents of the Danish Labor Force Survey (DLFS) between 2010 and 2017 and linked them to register-based information on weekly working hours, which was used to identify full-time workers and model group-based trajectories of marginal part-time...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVE: The present study aims to investigate the association between exposure to precarious employment three years after graduation and the risk of labor market marginalization (LMM) ten years later. METHODS: A registered-linked cohort study based on the Swedish Work, Illness, and Labor-market Participation (SWIP) cohort was conducted among all individuals born between 1973 and 1976, who were registered in Sweden the year they turned 27 years old (N=365 702)...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the prospective association of lifting duration and lifting load with the risk of long-term sickness absence (LTSA). METHODS: We followed manual workers with occupational lifting (N=45 346) from the Work Environment and Health in Denmark Study (2012-2018) for two years in a high-quality national register on social transfer payments (DREAM). Cox regressions with model-assisted weights were employed to estimate the risk of LTSA from lifting duration and loads...

OBJECTIVES: Integrating vocational rehabilitation and mental healthcare has shown effects on vocational outcomes during sick leave with common mental disorders. In a previous paper, we showed that a Danish integrated healthcare and vocational rehabilitation intervention (INT) had a surprisingly negative impact on vocational outcomes compared to service as usual (SAU) at 6- and 12-month follow-up. That was also the case with a mental healthcare intervention (MHC) tested in the same study...

OBJECTIVE: Previous literature has established associations between psychosocial working conditions and sickness absence (SA), but only few studies have examined associations among younger employees. This study aimed to investigate associations between psychosocial working conditions and SA among employees, aged 15-30 years, who entered the labor market in Denmark between 2010 and 2018. METHOD: We followed 301 185 younger employees in registers for on average 2...

OBJECTIVE: Heat exposure and heat stress/strain is a concern for many workers. There is increasing interest in potential chronic health effects of occupational heat exposure, including cancer risk. We examined potential associations of occupational heat exposure and colorectal cancer (CRC) risk in a large Spanish multi-case--control study. METHODS: We analyzed data on 1198 histologically confirmed CRC cases and 2690 frequency-matched controls. The Spanish job-exposure matrix, MatEmEsp, was used to assign heat exposure estimates to the lifetime occupations of participants...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to quantify the risk of COVID-19-related hospital admission in spouses living with partners in at-risk occupations in Denmark during 2020-21. METHODS: Within a registry-based cohort of all Danish employees (N=2 451 542), we identified cohabiting couples, in which at least one member (spouse) held a job that according to a job exposure matrix entailed low risk of occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (N=192 807 employees, 316 COVID-19 hospital admissions)...