The goal of our interdisciplinary research network is to identify workplace practices and policies that impact the health of low-wage employees and their families and dependents so that we can design effective work-based interventions to improve health outcomes.
Our specific aims are to: ? ? 1. Contribute to the research agenda of the national network through individual and collaborative projects aimed at understanding the dual work and family demands of low-wage workers and the policies and practices of workplaces that employ them, including: ? ? a. an individual research project to investigate the associations among a range of workplace policies and informal practices in 5 small manufacturing and service businesses on the health of their ethnically and racially diverse low-income employees (n=500) and children. We additionally aim to do a small substudy of 80 employees with at least one school age child to assess biological markers of stress including dysregulation of patterns of cortisol, ambulatory blood pressure and sleep (using actigraphy). ? ? b. a collaborative project aimed at refining our measures of elder care stress and parental after school stress (PASS) developed by Barnett and Gareis across a number of different industries varying in size and type of industry. Building on the work in the individual project, we aim to develop reliable and valid measures of PASS and elder care as they are related to job disruption, (lead center collaborative project) ? ? c. a collaborative project that will pilot a worksite intervention using a RCT design with the work unit as the unit of randomization to improve worksite practices related to parental and elder care stress. We are particularly interested in modifying practices that have an impact on a large number or men and women in the workforce (e.g. flexibility in daily work schedule to deal with family matters, ability to make phone calls from work, access to or referrals to care programs). Outcomes include job disruption and biological indicators of stress related to neuroendocrine function, sleep disturbance, blood pressure regulation, (collaborative center) ? ? ?
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