This study seeks to identify modifiable factors in work organizations that are associated with high-risk or problem drinking, after controlling for non-work influences and individual predispositions. Occupational risk factors will be specified at three levels: (1) Corporate-level culture as expressed in headquarters and company-wide policies and practices, (2) Worksite-level policies and norms, particularly managers' attitudes beliefs and behaviors (3) Workgroup-level factors, including norms in teams of workers under a single supervisor, as well as job conditions and social influences on the job. The conceptual model integrates separate theories of how working and drinking interact cultural job design, and psychosocial theories. The study will be housed in three-to-five very large multinational industrial corporations and will entail two phases of data collection. Phase 1 will assess corporate- and worksite-level variables through a self-administered survey of a representative sample of 10,000 managers at corporate headquarters and at up to 200 individual worksites. Prevalence estimates of specific drinking problems will also be collected from these managers, a uniform index of worksite drinking problem indicators will be developed from company records, and an interview study of 50 key informants will elicit qualitative data. Phase 2 will assess workgroup-level variables through surveys of 30-40 complete workgroups (N-5000 employees), and intensive interviews with key informants (N- 120) at each of 12 worksites, selected from scores on managerial drinking norms, after analyzing phase 1 data. Phase 2 will focus on workgroup-level processes that either transmit or neutralize aspects of corporate and worksite drinking culture. Inferences for the prevention of workers' drinking problems will explicitly be developed. The project will identify organizational levels at which interventions can most strategically be targeted; clarify processes through which corporate and worksite alcohol policies are transmitted and implemented more and less effectively, specify influences on problem drinking from three levels of workplace norms--corporate, worksite and workgroup; measure the independent impact on drinking of job strain and worklife quality, document the association of occupational risk factors with problem-drinking, after accounting for individual risk factors and exogenous social factors: and identify specific targets for focused prevention and intervention strategies. In the context of the federal government's war on drugs, and of increasing interest in screening out substance abusing workers, this project will search for concrete and constructive opportunities to prevent alcohol abuse and related problems. It will elaborate models and definition of underlying data collection, specify targets of opportunity from the employer,s standpoint, with a special eye to cost implications and relevance for company policy and decisions, but also will attend closely to workers' perspectives and concerns.
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