Work package 1 – Specific work stressors and health

SP 1.1 Modern working life stressors and health and recovery

This SP contains a number of projects that will determine the contribution of “new” stressors, like lack of boundaries, being locked up, redundancy, and job insecurity to stress and health, as well as the role of coping in handling them. Senior Researchers: Aronsson, Sverke, Westerlund, Alexanderson.

• One study (O) will investigate strategies like segmentation and integration in coping with boundary-less work, particularly with diffuse working hours and mobile work (IT industry) (W)
   
• A second study (P) will investigate job insecurity as a predictor of later subjective health, stress, cortisol, diagnosed disease (multilevel modelling of individual and contextual factors will be used). (W+R)
   
• A third study (O/P) will encompass three substudies with polysomnograpy (PSG) in the home after low and high stress exposure, to evaluate how psychological sleep is affected by different types of stress. (R+P)
   
• A fourth study (P) will investigate the stress and health effects of redundancy and outplacement, before and after the outplacement, in terms of transfer of competence. (W)
   
• A fifth study (P) concerns the work – life interface, looking at the prospective health/sleep effects of conflict, as well as its positive enhancement (SLOSH). (E+R)
   
• A sixth study (P) is labor market mobility, health and early retirement using a large prospective regional public health study (data collection 2000, 2005 and 2010) and the effects of being locked in are studied, i.e. the experience of not being in the preferred occupation and preferred workplace. (W+E)
   
• A seventh study (O) focuses on the particular work organizational effects of different open office plans and their impact on health, cognitive ability, fatigue, and sleep, taking architectural quality, leadership and personality into account (SLOSH plus detailed data collected from 2000+ office employees and their offices). (E+W)
   
• An eighth study (O) concerns the relative importance of genes and environments for burnout, which will be investigated in a classical twin study approach for associations between burnout and demographic, life-style, life events, personality, health, sickness absence and work-related factors while controlling for familial influences. (I+R)
   
• A ninth study, (P) investigates the distinction between individual perceptions of job insecurity and job insecurity climate (i.e., collective perceptions among colleagues) in the prediction of health and well-being. (W)
   
• A tenth study uses longitudinal data from employees within one organization to assess the development of job insecurity over time as well as how job insecurity trajectories relate to trajectories in health and well-being. (W)
   
• An eleventh study (O/P) investigates the incidence and prevalence of depression in relation to working life exposures in Sweden and Denmark, as well as possible mediating mechanisms, including sleep. (E+R)
   
• A twelfth study (P) investigates how stress and different indicators of health and health behaviors developed during the recent financial crisis. (R+E)

SP 1.2 Stress and recovery in specific occupational groups

This SP focuses on identifying stressors, stress, health and recovery in some occupational groups with a particular high level of stress. Senior Researchers: Svartengren, Aronsson, Åkerstedt.

• One study (P) will investigate the effects of stress in civil contingency agencies on stress in international conflict areas (military intervention) on indicators of sleep, health, physical capacity and work capacity. (O+R)
   
• A second study (P) will focus on mental health in nurses, physicians and teachers - groups that seem to undergo “deprofessionalization”. This study will use SLOSH and a Danish cohort. (W+E+R)
   
• In a third study (O) we investigate the psychosocial and other work conditions of physicians through a questionnaire to 1500 participants, partly repeating a study 18 years ago. (W+R)

SP 1.3 Work hours, stress, sleep and health

Work hours make up the framework for day-to-day living of workers and sets limits and deadlines for each individual’s use of his/her time. The aim in this SP is to identify health effects of shift work, and what aspects of work hours in general constitute a problem in terms of health. Senior Resarchers: Kecklund, Åkerstedt, Westerlund, Alexanderson, Aronsson.

• One study (O/P) will examine whether the work time variables are independently related to health and disturbed sleep, or if they moderate the influence of work stress on health (the SLOSH database and other registers will be used). (R+E)
   
• Another study (O) will explore the design of shift systems for health and sleep (national representative sample, N=4000) and characterize “good” and “bad” work schedules – from a shift workers point of view – and whether the attitude to the shift system is related to health perception. (R)
   
• A third study (O) will focus on what schedules workers prefer if they have shift systems based on self-rostering. (R)
   
• A fourth study (P) investigates the relation between shift work and cancer, using the Swedish Twin registry (in which we have entered accumulated night work exposure 15 years ago) and the cancer registry. (I+R)
   
• A fifth study (O/P) involves a series of field studies on sleepy driving in which night driving and shiftwork are key factors. A major focus is on demonstrating the degree of danger associated with night work sleepiness (with VTI). (R)
   
• A sixth study (O +) involves effects of maritime watch schedules on sleepiness and risk during a week in bridge simulators (Southampton/Gothenburgh). (R)

SP 1.4 Pathways and trajectories

This SP broadens the approach to stress-health-recovery through a life-course oriented approach and attempts to explain long-term trends in health or stress in terms of trends or events in possible explanatory factors like work stress. Senior Researchers: Westerlund, Kecklund, Lekander, Åkerstedt, Sverke, Alexanderson.

• One international collaborative study (O/P) uses longitudinal British, Danish, Finnish, French and Swedish cohort data with many repeat measurements to analyze long-term causal links between stressor and other environmental exposures and health/mortality. Trajectories of health, health-related functioning and behaviours (including sleep) are related to labour market participation, work environment, and major life transitions. (E+I+W)
   
• A second study (O/P) focuses on the “third age” to explain changes in fatigue and subjective health following retirement (which may reduce or increase stress) and aims to examine which aspects of work stress, working hours and health behaviours that may determine the outcomes, including mediating factors such as sleep and inflammation. (E+R+P)