Not Just Women’s Work: Recruiting Men to Occupational Therapy

Compared to women, men are less likely to become occupational therapists (OT). To have a more diverse workforce, and to relate to various patient groups, reasons men do not enter the field of OT must be better understood. Our study compares men and women in their familiarity with OT and desire to work in the field. Data were gathered using an online, self-report survey administered to students at a public university in the southeast. The sample included 334 undergraduate students who were in majors that often serve as feeder programs to OT graduate programs. The average age was 19.8 years (SD = 3.84). A majority of the students were women (80.1%). Ratings of familiarity with OT or interest in OT were generally low, with no significant differences between men and women. Women were more likely to endorse a calling orientation (i.e., work brings fulfillment to life) to their work, while men were more likely to endorse a career (i.e., advancement indicates achievement) or job orientation (i.e., the job is a means to an end). Career orientation predicted a greater interest in entering healthcare for men, but not women. More broadly, men and women may be interested in healthcare for different reasons, and this information needs to be utilized in marketing the profession

A noble task: Testing an operational model of clergy occupational health

In many ways, clergy and religious leaders are an ignored yet high-risk population. In their efforts to ensure the spiritual well-being of their congregations, clergy frequently neglect their own well-being, resulting in stress and burnout, which then can lead to impaired health. This neglect often extends to clergy’s family and congregation. Church members typically seek help from clergy to cope with the loss of loved ones, life crises, and other general life stressors. A clergy member unable to cope with these same challenges in his or her own life may be ineffective at helping church members to cope with their stress. Recent theory applications and measure development efforts in this research space have led to several studies of specific occupational hazards or challenges faced by clergy. These challenges include high job demands, congregational criticism, and isolation; restoration following moral failures (e.g., alcohol abuse, adultery); and resolving conflict among congregation members . Furthermore, a holistic model of clergy health functioning has been proposed, which includes specific occupational challenges and their detrimental effects on clergy health. Unfortunately, the constructs in this model are more theoretical than operational. While such a model is useful for conceptualizing the factors that influence clergy health, an operational model of clergy holistic health is still needed to empirically test the effects of occupational demands, and personal and job-related resources on the health of clergy. The purpose of the present study, therefore, is to develop and test such a model. The ultimate goal of this research is to offer a model and methodological approach that can be useful to those interested in better identifying and addressing the health and well-being needs of clergy so that they may thrive in their roles to the betterment of their families and congregations

A mixed methods study on the impact of the perceived aesthetics of a workplace

Interventions which change the visual appearance of the work environment to positively impact employee and organizational outcomes are becoming increasingly common. For example, environmental interventions such as adding indoor plants, changing the color of the walls, and increasing the amount of artwork within a workplace can lead to reduced stress levels, anxiety, fatigue, and sick leave (Dijsktra, Pieterse, & Pruyn, 2008a; Dijkstra, Pieterse & Pruyn, 2008b; Nejati, Rodiek, & Shepley, 2016). However, more research is needed to discover exactly why changing the appearance of work environments have a positive effect and what factors may influence the effectiveness of these interventions. There is theoretical and empirical support for the notion that the benefits of these interventions are in part due to the increased aesthetics of the environment. For example, Maslow (1954) wrote of a need for aesthetics, Kaplan & Kaplan (1989) argued that the aesthetic component of an environment can help individuals recover from mentally draining experiences, and Dijstrka, Pieterse, & Pruyn (2008) found that adding indoor plants to a room had positive psychological benefits due to the increase in the perceived attractiveness of the room. In this study, we seek to examine the impact that the perceived aesthetics of a workplace and the prevalence of aesthetic elements have on full time adult employees’ post work recovery needs, turnover intention, and job satisfaction. Additionally, we seek to examine if individual’s need for an aesthetically pleasing workplace and mindfulness levels moderate these relationships. Our ultimate goal with this work is to offer a model and methodological approach that can be useful to those interested in studying the impacts of the appearance of a workplace on employee job satisfaction, stress, and intention to stay at their job. A better understanding of this relationship will allow organizations to more effectively change the workplace to have greater positive impacts on employees’ health and happiness. This research comprises of two phases. First, participants complete a survey that measures relevant variables such as mindfulness levels, need for an aesthetically pleasing workplace, individual differences (e.g., personality), and asks them to identify any aesthetically pleasing visual elements that are present in their workplace (e.g., plants, artwork, colorful walls). If participants consent to continue to phase two, they will be asked to upload three photos of their workplace. These photos will be thematically coded to identify what elements are frequently present in environments that are rated as aesthetically pleasing

Quality assessment of work recovery activities: Guidance for recovering from work-related demands

The proposed study is designed to test a revised work recovery process model and gather data to provide guidance for work recovery activities based on their recovery quality value. Using an integrated and modified model of the stress-recovery process, recovery quality will be measured in terms of potential for psychological detachment, mastery, and control, with relaxation serving as an outcome state associated with the proposed three core recovery mechanisms. Underlying theoretical frameworks such as the Conservation of Resources Theory, the Effort-Recovery Model, and the Job-Demands Resource model served as the foundation to describe the importance of recovering depleted resources. Past research suggests active forms of recovery in natural environments hold the greatest potential for work recovery, but research has been limited to broad activity category classifications. In this study we take a more holistic approach to identifying specific recovery activities and their associated recovery experience quality by asking participants to list, rank order, and provide quality-related details regarding their three most common recovery activities. A variety of analyses will be used to compare average ratings of recovery quality elements and identify common recovery themes

Understanding the Work Demands, Resources, and Barriers to Achieving Optimal Well-Being in Immigrant Workers

According to recent reports of immigrants working in poor conditions worldwide, the International Committee of Health (ICOH, 2021) has declared the immediate need to create scientific evidence to encourage a preventive culture in occupational health for migrant workers. In 2019, 470,125 immigrants lived in Tennessee, of which 43% are Latino, and Spanish the most common language (76%). The present study aims to identify the work-demands, resources, and barriers to achieve optimal well-being in immigrant workers with a sample recruited from Chattanooga and the surrounding area. Participants will be recruited through convenience and snowball sampling with the inclusion criteria of being at least 18 years old and working full time in a manual labor job with hourly pay or project-based/contract for at least 5 years. The participants will form three focus groups of eight members each, based on evidence concluding that code and thematic saturation can be found in focus group research designs with three to six focus groups (Guest et al., 2017). To structure the discussion and data gathering, a semi-structured questionnaire in Spanish will be composed of three sections: Perceived hazards at work, which will contain questions like “Have you encountered any materials or instruments at work that you believe are harmful to your health?”. Resources to protect well-being, which will contain questions like: “Do you have any strategies to protect your health while at work?”. And barriers to access to needed resources for optimal well-being, which will include questions like: “Are there any additional resources or support that you wish you had access to at work to enhance your well-being?”. The data gathered will be analyzed using Thematic Analysis to identify themes in a data-driven, bottom-up, and a deductive approach. Two coders with Spanish proficiency will achieve consensus of interpretations while coding the data and identify themes that share common ideas. The researcher expects to find demands, resources, and barriers like prior research, but also aim to explore novel factors not identified in empirical research, such as perceived access to care, physical and psychological connectedness to long exposure, and surveillance of diseases. With immigration increasing worldwide, leaders of organizations need to seriously consider the opportunity this presents to identify and hire diverse talent, as well to acknowledge the resources they need to be happier and productive (Fang et al., 2022)

Exploring the Effects of Financial Strain on Organizational Commitment and Occupational Commitment

Financial strain is defined as an individual’s perception of economic stress and/or lack of resources (Adams et al., 2016). Although it has been linked to a multitude of negative well-being outcomes (Son & Wilson, 2015), there is little research regarding its impact on work-related attitudes, including organizational and occupational commitment. Several studies have found that financially-related variables, such as income, pay satisfaction, and extrinsic organizational rewards are positively related to organizational commitment (Cohen and Lowenberg, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Malhotra et al., 2007). Though occupational commitment and organizational commitment tend to be positively related (Lee et al., 2000), less research has focused on the relationship between occupational commitment and extrinsic rewards. As commitment and turnover or intent to turnover can often stem from job stressors (Jha, 2009), there is likely a relationship between financial strain, which serves as a source of stress, and both organizational and occupational commitment. In the present study, we examined relationships between financial strain and four types of commitment (affective organizational, continuance organizational, affective occupational, and continuance organizational). Data was gathered using an online survey from early career professionals who had graduated college in the past 10 years. Respondents received a $5 gift card for participating, along with entry into a raffle for one of several$50 gift cards. The final sample of 255 respondents was composed more heavily of women (59.4%) and was predominately White (59%). Hierarchical linear regression analyses were used to test our hypotheses, controlling for age, tenure, occupational tenure, and negative affect. Financial strain had a significant negative relationship with affective organizational commitment, b = -.25, p = .001, 〖sr〗^2 = 4.2% and a significant positive relationship with continuance organizational commitment, b = .31, p \u3c .001, 〖sr〗^2 = 8.3%. Financial strain also had a significant negative relationship with affective occupational commitment, b = -.14, p = .04, 〖sr〗^2 = 1.6% and a significant positive relationship with continuance occupational commitment, b = .27, p \u3c .001, 〖sr〗^2 = 8.6%. These findings suggest that financial strain may impact employee’s commitment to their organization and occupation. This knowledge can help provide employers a better understanding of the employee’s experience, especially for early career professionals. It may also encourage organizations to curate benefits and resources that assist in alleviating employees’ financial strain

Using the Job Demands-Resources model to predict burnout in police officers in the UK and the US

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model has been used in a number of research studies to predict burnout among human service professionals, including police officers. Rates of burnout among police officers can vary widely between countries and types of officers, which necessitates further exploration of the workplace stressors and conditions that impact how and why police officers experience burnout. In this study I will examine data from two samples of police officers, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States, to explore if certain demands and resources have different weights in contributing to burnout for police officers in different countries. Additionally, police have received significant media and public attention in the United States in recent years, which could be functioning as a unique stressor for police work. Thus, I will include exploratory research questions about officers’ perceptions of community support for police work in the American sample and how those portrayals could further impact burnout and health above and beyond their typical job demands

A two-step mechanism for epigenetic specification of centromere identity and function

The basic determinant of chromosome inheritance, the centromere, is specified in many eukaryotes by an epigenetic mark. Using gene targeting in human cells and fission yeast, chromatin containing the centromere-specific histone H3 variant CENP-A is demonstrated to be the epigenetic mark that acts through a two-step mechanism to identify, maintain and propagate centromere function indefinitely. Initially, centromere position is replicated and maintained by chromatin assembled with the centromere-targeting domain (CATD) of CENP-A substituted into H3. Subsequently, nucleation of kinetochore assembly onto CATD-containing chromatin is shown to require either the amino- or carboxy-terminal tail of CENP-A for recruitment of inner kinetochore proteins, including stabilizing CENP-B binding to human centromeres or direct recruitment of CENP-C, respectively.National Institutes of Health grant: (GM 074150); Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) long-term fellowship

Common Variation in ISL1 Confers Genetic Susceptibility for Human Congenital Heart Disease

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth abnormality and the etiology is unknown in the overwhelming majority of cases. ISLET1 (ISL1) is a transcription factor that marks cardiac progenitor cells and generates diverse multipotent cardiovascular cell lineages. The fundamental role of ISL1 in cardiac morphogenesis makes this an exceptional candidate gene to consider as a cause of complex congenital heart disease. We evaluated whether genetic variation in ISL1 fits the common variant–common disease hypothesis. A 2-stage case-control study examined 27 polymorphisms mapping to the ISL1 locus in 300 patients with complex congenital heart disease and 2,201 healthy pediatric controls. Eight genic and flanking ISL1 SNPs were significantly associated with complex congenital heart disease. A replication study analyzed these candidate SNPs in 1,044 new cases and 3,934 independent controls and confirmed that genetic variation in ISL1 is associated with risk of non-syndromic congenital heart disease. Our results demonstrate that two different ISL1 haplotypes contribute to risk of CHD in white and black/African American populations

Public health and economic impact of vaccination with 7-valent pneumococcal vaccine (PCV7) in the context of the annual influenza epidemic and a severe influenza pandemic

Background: Influenza pandemic outbreaks occurred in the US in 1918, 1957, and 1968. Historical evidence suggests that the majority of influenza-related deaths during the 1918 US pandemic were attributable to bacterial pneumococcal infections. The 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) outbreak highlights the importance of interventions that may mitigate the impact of a pandemic. Methods: A decision-analytic model was constructed to evaluate the impact of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) on pneumococcal disease incidence and mortality during a typical influenza season (13/100) and a severe influenza pandemic (30/100). Outcomes were compared for current PCV7 vaccination practices vs. no vaccination. The model was estimated using published sources and includes indirect (herd) protection of non-vaccinated persons. Results: The model predicts that PCV7 vaccination in the US is cost saving for a normal influenza season, reducing pneumococcal-related costs by $1.6 billion. In a severe influenza pandemic, vaccination would save$7.3 billion in costs and prevent 512,000 cases of IPD, 719,000 cases of pneumonia, 62,000 IPD deaths, and 47,000 pneumonia deaths; 84% of deaths are prevented due to indirect (herd) protection in the unvaccinated. Conclusions: PCV7 vaccination is highly effective and cost saving in both normal and severe pandemic influenza seasons. Current infant vaccination practices may prevent >1 million pneumococcal-related deaths in a severe influenza pandemic, primarily due to herd protection