Opportunities and challenges in designing and evaluating complex multilevel, multi-stakeholder occupational health interventions in practice

Extant research suggests the effectiveness of Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) interventions depends on their design in the broader organizational context. While the field recognizes that pre- and posttest evaluation do not sufficiently capture the complex dynamics around OHP interventions, complex multi-level OHP interventions are still scarce in the literature. As established intervention implementation frameworks suggest, it remains difficult to address this complexity in practice. The present position paper re-evaluates lessons learned from two complex European OHP intervention projects, by applying the Integrated Process Evaluation Framework (IPEF) and related theories to bridge the gap between the theoretically recognized complexity and practical challenges. The re-evaluations emphasize that program-multilevel theories rooted in OHP-perspectives contribute to adequately hypothesizing around systemic factors and mechanisms relevant to OHP interventions. Concretely, middle range theories that outline how an intervention’s mechanisms work within a specific context to produce certain outcomes are crucial. Additionally, strategically and actively involving key stakeholders at all levels of the system and across the different intervention phases improves the embedding of OHP interventions in organizations. We elaborate on these insights with seven concrete recommendations for complex OHP intervention research

Age-specific symptom prevalence in women 35–64 years old: A population-based study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Symptom prevalence is generally believed to increase with age. The aim of this study was to evaluate the age specific prevalence of 30 general symptoms among Swedish middle-aged women.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional postal questionnaire study in seven Swedish counties in a random sample of 4,200 women 35–64 years old, with 2,991 responders. Thirty general symptoms included in the Complaint Score subscale of the Gothenburg Quality of Life Instrument were used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four groups of age specific prevalence patterns were identified after adjustment for the influence of educational level, perceived health and mood, body mass index, smoking habits, use of hormone replacement therapy, and use of other symptom relieving therapy. Only five symptoms (insomnia, leg pain, joint pain, eye problems and impaired hearing) increased significantly with age. Eleven symptoms (general fatigue, headache, irritability, melancholy, backache, exhaustion, feels cold, cries easily, abdominal pain, dizziness, and nausea) decreased significantly with age. Two symptoms (sweating and impaired concentration) had a biphasic course with a significant increase followed by a significant decrease. The remaining twelve symptoms (difficulty in relaxing, restlessness, overweight, coughing, breathlessness, diarrhoea, chest pain, constipation, nervousness, poor appetite, weight loss, and difficulty in urinating) had stable prevalence with age.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Symptoms did not necessarily increase with age instead symptoms related to stress-tension-depression decreased.</p

Challenges and opportunities: impacts of COVID-19 on Norwegian seafood exports

A rapidly growing literature shows that COVID-19 and the measures to contain the spread of the virus can have significant market impacts for seafood. These can be interruptions of production, or reductions in demand directly or indirectly due to supply chain challenges. In this paper we investigate the potential impacts of COVID-19 on seafood exports from Norway, the world's second largest seafood exporter, using highly detailed data from 2016 through May 2021. These data allow us to assess upstream impacts in the seafood supply chain close to the producer level in aggregate and by main sector, impacts on the largest products, and the extent to which export firm structure and export markets served have changed. We find very few impacts in aggregate as well as for individual products, suggesting that the markets and supply chains used by Norwegian seafood exports were sufficiently robust and flexible to accommodate the shocks created by COVID-19. Given Norway's size as a seafood exporter, the impact of COVID-19 has likely been moderate upstreams for a number of seafood sectors around the world, especially those in wealthy nations, with opportunities balancing out challenges, and that the supply chains have been highly resilient