Health at Work and Low-pay:a European Perspective

This study investigates the relationship between health, working conditions and pay in Europe. In particular, we measure health at work using self-assessed indicators for overall, as well as physical and mental health, using the 2005 wave of the EWCS (European Working Conditions Survey) for 15 EU countries. We find that, controlling for personal characteristics, (adverse) working conditions are associated with poor health status – both physical and mental. Low pay plays a role, mainly for men and when interacted with working conditions, suggesting that stigma and deprivation effects may be correlated with health at work. We also account for the potential endogeneity arising from workers sorting by firms and job types with different working conditions, and provide evidence of a causal effect of (adverse) working conditions and (low) pay on health at the workplace.working conditions, physical and mental health, low-pay employment

Socioeconomic gradient in health: how important is material deprivation?

In this paper we use the Spanish Living Conditions Survey (2005‐2008) to investigate whether there is a socioeconomic gradient in health when alternative measures of socioeconomic status, apart from income, are considered. In particular we construct a material deprivation index that reflects some minimum standards of quality of life, and we analyze its impact on self‐reported health. To address this issue, we use a deprivation index that incorporates comparison effects with societal peers and we estimate health equations using a random effects model. Furthermore, the model is extended to include a Mundlak term that corrects for the potential correlation between the error term and the regressors. Our results reveal that the relationship between health and income operates through comparison information with respect to societal peers. In contrast, material deprivation in terms of financial difficulties, basic necessities and housing conditions exerts a direct effect on individual healt

Adverse Workplace Conditions, High-Involvement Work Practices and Labor Turnover: Evidence from Danish Linked Employer-Employee Data

This paper contributes to the emerging strand of the empirical literature that takes advantage of new data on workplace-specific job attributes and voluntary employee turnover to shed fresh insights on the relationship between employee turnover, adverse workplace conditions and HRM environments. We find evidence that workers in hazardous workplace conditions are indeed more likely to separate from their current employers voluntarily while High-Involvement Work Practices (HIWPs) reduces employee turnover. Specifically, exposing a worker to physical hazards such as loud noise, vibration or poor lighting will lead to a 3 percentage point increase in the probability of turnover from the average turnover rate of 18 percent; working in a fixed night shift will result in an 11 percentage point jump in the turnover probability, and having an unsupportive boss will lead to a 5 percentage point increase. The effect of HIWPs is modest yet hardly negligible with a 4 percentage point reduction in the turnover probability from having voice in the workplace. Furthermore the turnover-increasing effect of physical hazards is found to be significantly reduced by the presence of strong information sharing whereas the adverse effect on turnover of the use of fixed night shift is also found to be significantly mitigated by the authority delegation to workers by management. As such, our evidence lends support to those who advocate the use of HIWPs for those firms with employee turnover problems due to hazardous workplace conditions. Finally, our logit analysis of the 5-year odds of improving workplace conditions suggests that the worker exposed to adverse workplace conditions can improve her long-term odds of rectifying such workplace adversities significantly by separating from the firm voluntarily. Voluntary turnover appears to be a rational worker response to adverse workplace conditions, and unless the firm alleviates its adverse workplace conditions directly or mitigates their effects on voluntary turnover through HIWPs, workers exposed to adverse workplace conditions will likely continue to take the exit option.employee turnover, workplace conditions, human resource management, high-involvement work system, high-performance work system

Is it the Way You Live or the Job You Have? Health Effects of Lifestyles and Working Conditions

This paper investigates the role of lifestyles (smoking, drinking and obesity) and working conditions (physical hazards, no support from colleagues, job worries and repetitive work) on health. Three alternative systems of simultaneous multivariate probit equations are estimated, one for each health measure: an indicator of selfassessed health, an indicator of physical health, and an indicator of work-related mental health problems, using Danish data for 2000 and 2005. We find that while lifestyles are significant determinants of self-assessed health, they play a minor role for our indicators of physical health and mental health. The effect of lifestyles seems to be dominated by the effect of adverse working conditions, which significantly worsen health. This result is robust for all health dimensions considered

Youth prospects in a time of economic recession

Background: The paper gives an update to earlier analysis considering youth poverty and transition to adulthood, which is timely given the economic crisis engulfing many countries in Europe. Whereas the crisis is affecting young people in particular, there is also a certain degree of variation across Europe. Objective: We document the short-term consequences of the current recession on the transition to adulthood of young Europeans, focusing on two main cornerstones in the transition to adulthood: economic independence and residential autonomy. Methods: We use a combination of OECD Employment Statistics for 2012 and micro-level data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the period 2005-2011 for 24 countries. Results: We document an increase in economic hardship experienced by young adults in several European countries during the recession, which is starting to translate into higher rates of co-residence with parents, hence delaying the process of leaving home and gaining economic independence. Conclusions: The way countries are reacting to the recession is not yet clear-cut, but economic uncertainty and deprivation is on the rise in those countries hardest hit, which is likely to delay the key markers of transition to adulthood

The Impact of Workplace Conditions on Firm Performance

This paper estimates the impact of work environment health and safety practice on firm performance, and examines which firm-characteristic factors are associated with good work conditions. We use Danish longitudinal register matched employer-employee data, merged with firm business accounts and detailed cross-sectional survey data on workplace conditions. This enables us to address typical econometric problems such as omitted variables bias or endogeneity in estimating i) standard production functions augmented with work environment indicators and aggregate employee characteristics and ii) firm mean wage regressions on the same explanatory variables. Our findings suggest that improvement in some of the physical dimensions of the work health and safety environment (specifically, “internal climate” and “repetitive and strenuous activity”) strongly impacts the firm productivity, whereas “internal climate” problems are the only workplace hazards compensated for by higher mean wages

Health Effects of Risky Lifestyles and Adverse Working Conditions: Are Older Individuals More Penalized?

Using unusually rich panel data from Denmark, we investigate differences by age in the health implications of risky lifestyles and adverse working conditions. Accounting for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, overall, we find no health penalties for older workers (55 and over) compared to younger ones (18\u201334; 35\u201354). However, the former suffer more from the health consequences of risky lifestyles\u2014especially the lack of consumption of fruit and vegetables and physical inactivity. Working conditions negatively relate with health, but fewer differences across age groups exist. Selection bias, namely the healthy worker effect, does not alter our results

Psychological treatments and psychotherapies in the neurorehabilitation of pain. Evidences and recommendations from the italian consensus conference on pain in neurorehabilitation

BACKGROUND: It is increasingly recognized that treating pain is crucial for effective care within neurological rehabilitation in the setting of the neurological rehabilitation. The Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation was constituted with the purpose identifying best practices for us in this context. Along with drug therapies and physical interventions, psychological treatments have been proven to be some of the most valuable tools that can be used within a multidisciplinary approach for fostering a reduction in pain intensity. However, there is a need to elucidate what forms of psychotherapy could be effectively matched with the specific pathologies that are typically addressed by neurorehabilitation teams. OBJECTIVES: To extensively assess the available evidence which supports the use of psychological therapies for pain reduction in neurological diseases. METHODS: A systematic review of the studies evaluating the effect of psychotherapies on pain intensity in neurological disorders was performed through an electronic search using PUBMED, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Based on the level of evidence of the included studies, recommendations were outlined separately for the different conditions. RESULTS: The literature search yielded 2352 results and the final database included 400 articles. The overall strength of the recommendations was medium/low. The different forms of psychological interventions, including Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, cognitive or behavioral techniques, Mindfulness, hypnosis, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Brief Interpersonal Therapy, virtual reality interventions, various forms of biofeedback and mirror therapy were found to be effective for pain reduction in pathologies such as musculoskeletal pain, fibromyalgia, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Central Post-Stroke pain, Phantom Limb Pain, pain secondary to Spinal Cord Injury, multiple sclerosis and other debilitating syndromes, diabetic neuropathy, Medically Unexplained Symptoms, migraine and headache. CONCLUSIONS: Psychological interventions and psychotherapies are safe and effective treatments that can be used within an integrated approach for patients undergoing neurological rehabilitation for pain. The different interventions can be specifically selected depending on the disease being treated. A table of evidence and recommendations from the Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation is also provided in the final part of the pape

RESCUE OF HIPPO CO-ACTIVATOR YAP1 TRIGGERS DNA DAMAGE-INDUCED APOPTOSIS IN HEMATOLOGICAL CANCERS

Oncogene–induced DNA damage elicits genomic instability in epithelial cancer cells, but apoptosis is blocked through inactivation of the tumor suppressor p53. In hematological cancers, the relevance of ongoing DNA damage and mechanisms by which apoptosis is suppressed are largely unknown. We found pervasive DNA damage in hematologic malignancies including multiple myeloma, lymphoma and leukemia, which leads to activation of a p53–independent, pro-apoptotic network centered on nuclear relocalization of ABL1 kinase. Although nuclear ABL1 triggers cell death through its interaction with the Hippo pathway co–activator YAP1 in normal cells, we show that low YAP1 levels prevent nuclear ABL1–induced apoptosis in these hematologic malignancies. YAP1 is under the control of a serine–threonine kinase, STK4. Importantly, genetic inactivation of STK4 restores YAP1 levels, triggering cell death in vitro and in vivo. Our data therefore identify a novel synthetic–lethal strategy to selectively target cancer cells presenting with endogenous DNA damage and low YAP1 levels