Job Demands and Job Resources Among Western Airline Cabin Crews: A Comparative Study of Canadian, German, and French Flight Attendants

Flight attendants are frontline workers in charge of onboard security, safety and customer service. They are required to perform a number of tasks requiring physical and psychological efforts associated with numerous health costs for this group of workers. In the aftermath of Covid-19, flight attendants employed at major airlines will likely be faced with increased job demands. However, little is known about how widespread job resources are among Western cabin crews. Based on recent findings in flight attendant job-demands literature along with the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework in strategic HRM, this paper questions airline leeway and choices in resource allocation to flight attendants in a cross-country comparison of perceived job demands, job resources, stress and burnout among Canadian, French and German cabin crew. Despite belonging to similar institutional contexts, German flight attendants scored consistently better than the French on most job demands and burnout, while presenting the most varied offer of organizational resources

Advantages of and Barriers to Crafting New Technology in Healthcare Organizations: A Qualitative Study in the COVID-19 Context

Nursing professionals are constantly required to adapt to technological changes, and especially so in the wake of COVID-19, which has prompted the development of new digital tools. A new and specific form of job crafting in relation to new technology has recently emerged in the literature; that is, adoption job crafting. However, little is known about this specific form of job crafting, especially within the pandemic context. We aim, in this study, to explore the advantages of and barriers to adoption job crafting. We used NVivo software to analyze 42 semi-structured interviews conducted during COVID-19. Our findings revealed that nurses had proactive and positive attitudes toward new technology (adoption job crafting) to enhance efficiency, sustainability, well-being, virtual teamwork, communication, and knowledge sharing. We also identified many barriers to adoption job crafting due to several organizational obstacles, such as the lack of human resource management practices, especially training, and the characteristics of the technology used. We contribute to the literature by documenting innovative cases of and barriers to adoption job crafting, which have not been explored before. These findings stress the necessity to adopt human resources practices, especially training, to foster positive job crafting among nurses and safeguard their adaptive expertise

Personnels navigants : un collectif de travail à l’épreuve du changement

Notre article porte sur les intensités et la fragilisation des collectifs de travail et offre une synthèse de la littérature concernant le travail et ses intensités, en particulier dans le milieu aérien. Prenant le cas du personnel navigant commercial (PNC) dans le milieu aérien, nous nous appuyons sur la théorie des demandes-ressources du travail et de l’organisation capacitante pour analyser les perceptions de ces travailleurs concernant les demandes physiques, psychosociales et organisationnelles du travail, ainsi que les ressources de même type, notamment à la suite de l’autorisation d’une réduction d’effectif par le ministère des Transports sur bon nombre de porteurs canadiens en juillet 2015. Nous portons une attention particulière aux demandes du travail constituant une contrainte, ce qui est rarement pris en compte dans les études sur l’intensification du travail. À l’aide du construit de caravanes de ressources et d’organisation capacitante, nous nous demandons si les collectifs de travail PNC sont en mesure d’accomplir leur mission collective de maintien de la sécurité et de service auprès du public. Nous avons pour cela mené 41 entrevues semi-dirigées auprès d’agents de bord et de directeurs de vol volontaires provenant de deux compagnies aériennes canadiennes. Nous avons procédé à une analyse de contenu qualitative faisant émerger les thèmes principaux de manière inductive et analysant les demandes et les ressources physiques, psychosociales et organisationnelles du travail. Nos résultats documentent de façon originale comment une augmentation notable des intensités contraignantes du travail perturbe les collectifs de travail, en particulier le rôle pivot du directeur de vol, contribuant à la recherche émergente au sujet de la fragilisation des processus de travail. De nombreux aspects demeurent à améliorer pour qualifier les compagnies aériennes étudiées d’organisations capacitantes.PrécisDe plus en plus complexes, les organisations modernes sont le lieu de diverses sources d’intensité pour les travailleurs, requérant de ces derniers des efforts selon des logiques et des injonctions plurielles, parfois contradictoires. Dans le milieu aérien, les compagnies recourent à divers modes de gestion impliquant beaucoup de changements rapides pour les employés, exigeant de ceux-ci une flexibilité et une adaptabilité croissantes. Cela dit, toutes les intensités du travail ne mènent pas nécessairement à la perception d’intensification du travail chez les employés. Nous nous intéressons au cas du personnel navigant commercial, un collectif faisant face à de nombreuses intensités du travail. Les agents de bord et les directeurs de vol canadiens ont-ils les moyens d’assurer leur mission collective de sécurité et de service auprès du public ?Our article deals with intensities and fragilization of work collectives, and offers a synthesis of the literature regarding work and its intensities, particularly within the air travel sector. Analyzing commercial airline crews, the article uses the demands-resources and capacitating organization theories to analyze the perceptions of these workers as concerns physical, psychosocial and organizational demands of work, as well as the resources of same nature, in the context of a reduction of personnel authorized by the Transportation Department for many Canadian carriers in July 2015. We pay particular attention to the work demands which constitute a constraint, something which is rarely considered in research on intensification of work. With the resource-caravan and capacitating organization concepts we seek to determine whether airline crews (stewards and directors) have the means to ensure their collective mission of security and service to the public. We conducted 41 semi-directed interviews with stewards and pursers or flight directors from two Canadian airlines. We conducted an inductive research based on qualitative content analysis to obtain the main themes and analyze the physical, psychosocial and organizational demands and resources for work. Our results illustrate in an original way how an important increase in constraining work intensities disrupts the work collective, particularly the pivotal role of the flight director, thus contributing to emerging research on fragilization of work processes. Many aspects would need to be changed in order to qualify airlines as capacitating organizations

How Psychosocial Safety Climate Helped Alleviate Work Intensification Effects on Presenteeism during the COVID-19 Crisis? A Moderated Mediation Model

Healthcare sector organizations have long been facing the issue of productivity loss due to presenteeism which is affected by psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and work intensification. Presenteeism has visibly increased among nurses during COVID-19 pandemic period. Grounded in COR theory and sensemaking theory, the current study aimed to examine the role PSC plays as driver or moderator to reduce presenteeism by lessening work intensification over time and the impact of work intensification over time on presenteeism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a time-lagged research design, this study gathered data from randomly selected registered nurses, practicing in Québec, Canada in two phases, i.e., 800 at Time 1 and 344 at Time 2 through email surveys. The study results showed that (1) PSC reduces presenteeism over time by reducing work intensification at time 1; (2) PSC moderates the relationship between work intensification at time 1 and work intensification at time 2; and (3) PSC as moderator also lessens the detrimental effect of work intensification at time 2 on presenteeism at time 2. Presenteeism among nurses affects their health and psychological well-being. We find that PSC is likely an effective organizational tool particularly in crises situations, by providing an organizational mechanism to assist nurses cope (through a resource caravan, management support) with managing intensified work

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe

Global variations in diabetes mellitus based on fasting glucose and haemogloblin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but may identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening had elevated FPG, HbA1c, or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardised proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed, and detected in survey screening, ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the agestandardised proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global gap in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance.peer-reviewe