Influence of Flexibility and Variability of Working Hours on Health and Well‐Being

Flexible working hours can have several meanings and can be arranged in a number of ways to suit the worker and/or employer. Two aspects of “flexible” arrangement of working hours were considered: one more subjected to company control and decision (variability) and one more connected to individual discretion and autonomy (flexibility). The aim of the study was to analyze these two dimensions in relation to health and well‐being, taking into consideration the interaction with some relevant background variables related to demographics plus working and social conditions. The dataset of the Third European Survey on working conditions, conducted in 2000 and involving 21,505 workers, was used. Nineteen health disorders and four psycho‐social conditions were tested by means of multiple logistic regression analysis, in which mutually adjusted odds ratios were calculated for age, gender, marital status, number of children, occupation, mode of employment, shift work, night work, time pressure, mental and physical workload, job satisfaction, and participation in work organization. The flexibility and variability of working hours appeared inversely related to health and psycho‐social well‐being: the most favorable effects were associated with higher flexibility and lower variability. The analysis of the interactions with the twelve intervening variables showed that physical work, age, and flexibility are the three most important factors affecting health and well‐being. Flexibility resulted as the most important factor to influence work satisfaction; the second to affect family and social commitment and the ability to do the same job when 60 years old, as well as trauma, overall fatigue, irritability, and headache; and the third to influence heart disease, stomachache, anxiety, injury, and the feeling that health being at risk because of work. Variability was the third most important factor influencing family and social commitments. Moreover, shift and night work confirmed to have a significant influence on sleep, digestive and cardiovascular troubles, as well and health and safety at work. Time pressure also showed a relevant influence, both on individual stress and social life. Therefore, suitable arrangements of flexible working time, aimed at supporting workers' coping strategies, appear to have a clear beneficial effect on worker health and well‐being, with positive consequences also at the company and social level, as evidenced by the higher “feeling to be able to work until 60 years of age”.     

The Interference of Flexible Working Times with the Circadian Temperature Rhythm—a Predictor of Impairment to Health and Well‐Being?

In order to analyze whether impairments to health and well‐being under flexible working hours can be predicted from specific characteristics of the work schedules, periodic components in flexible working hours and their interference with the circadian temperature rhythm were analyzed applying univariate and bivariate spectrum analyses to both time series. The resulting indicators of spectral power and phase shift of these components were then related to reported health impairments using regression analysis. The results show that a suppression of both the 24 and the 168 h components in the work schedules (i.e., a lack of periodicity) can be used to predict reported health impairments, and that if there are relatively strong 24 and 168 h components left in the work schedules, their phase difference with the temperature rhythm (as an indicator of the interference between working time and the circadian rhythm) further predicts impairment. The results indicate that the periodicity of working hours and the amount of (circadian) desynchronization induced by flexible work schedules can be used for predicting the impairing effects of flexible work schedules on health and well‐being. The results can thus be used for evaluating and designing flexible shift rosters.     

Analyzing Irregular Working Hours: Lessons Learned in the Development of RAS 1.0—The Representation and Analysis Software

Actual working hours of employees vary widely, especially in the transportation industry. We developed a tool, the RAS (Representation and Analysis Software), to ease the assessment of such irregular hours and the transfer of existing knowledge of proper schedule design to the problem of irregular hours. This article discusses several critical design questions that were addressed during software development in order for it to assess irregular work patterns, including the (1) importance, in spite of a lack of established definitions, of basic concepts like, e.g., night shift, (2) difficulty of modeling and adapting existing knowledge on proper design, and (3) large number of analytical methods and additional data beyond company schedule that are necessary to meet the needs of various research groups. This article describes how the RAS addresses these three issues by illustrating its application to the work schedule of a train driver involved in the Hinton train disaster.     

AN INTERMEDIATE PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY—The Usefulness of a Place for Treatment Between Hospital and Home

A new kind of psychiatric facility to deal with patients returning to their community from a state hospital or with patients newly ill and treatable locally, combines a number of features in the interests of economy and enhanced effectiveness. Its economy arises from: (1) The exclusion of bed-patient and security-ward care for patients not in need of them; (2) a shortened hospital stay resulting from rapid treatment procedures (electroconvulsion, brief psychotherapy and drug therapy); (3) a flexible shifting to outpatient or day care as soon as practicable. Enhanced effectiveness of therapy arises from earlier discharge from state hospitals, earlier treatment of patients from the community, as well as comprehensive utilization of multiple therapeutic modalities.     

Meeting report of the OECD conference on “Genome Editing: Applications in Agriculture—Implications for Health,Environment and Regulation”

Transgenic Research - The “OECD Conference on Genome Editing: Applications in Agriculture—Implications for Health, Environment and Regulation” was held on the 28–29 June...     

EVALUATION OF GRIP LOSS—A Factor of Permanent Partial Disability in California: Summation and Conclusions of the Subcommittee for Study of Grasping Power of the Committee on Industrial Health and Rehabilitation of the California Medical Association

Loss of grasping power is a ratable factor of permanent partial disability by the Industrial Accident Commission of the State of California. The ratings that issue therefrom are based upon the proportion of grasping power actually lost as a result of the injury sustained. The conditions which most frequently impair grasping power are, (1) amputation; (2) limited motion of digits, wrists, forearm, elbow or shoulder; (3) pain; (4) muscular weakness. The examining physician can greatly facilitate proper rating if he carefully and fully reports data needed by the I.A.C. Grip readings should be measured by the most precise instrument which can be obtained. Makeshift devices such as using a blood pressure cuff are not acceptable. A committee of the California Medical Association appointed to study the subject of loss of grip for purposes of establishing compensation rating, concluded that a dynamometer that registers pounds force is preferable to one registering pressure.     

“Working the System”—British American Tobacco's Influence on the European Union Treaty and Its Implications for Policy: An Analysis of Internal Tobacco Industry Documents

Background

Impact assessment (IA) of all major European Union (EU) policies is now mandatory. The form of IA used has been criticised for favouring corporate interests by overemphasising economic impacts and failing to adequately assess health impacts. Our study sought to assess how, why, and in what ways corporations, and particularly the tobacco industry, influenced the EU''s approach to IA.

Methods and Findings

In order to identify whether industry played a role in promoting this system of IA within the EU, we analysed internal documents from British American Tobacco (BAT) that were disclosed following a series of litigation cases in the United States. We combined this analysis with one of related literature and interviews with key informants. Our analysis demonstrates that from 1995 onwards BAT actively worked with other corporate actors to successfully promote a business-oriented form of IA that favoured large corporations. It appears that BAT favoured this form of IA because it could advance the company''s European interests by establishing ground rules for policymaking that would: (i) provide an economic framework for evaluating all policy decisions, implicitly prioritising costs to businesses; (ii) secure early corporate involvement in policy discussions; (iii) bestow the corporate sector with a long-term advantage over other actors by increasing policymakers'' dependence on information they supplied; and (iv) provide businesses with a persuasive means of challenging potential and existing legislation. The data reveal that an ensuing lobbying campaign, largely driven by BAT, helped secure binding changes to the EU Treaty via the Treaty of Amsterdam that required EU policymakers to minimise legislative burdens on businesses. Efforts subsequently focused on ensuring that these Treaty changes were translated into the application of a business orientated form of IA (cost–benefit analysis [CBA]) within EU policymaking procedures. Both the tobacco and chemical industries have since employed IA in apparent attempts to undermine key aspects of European policies designed to protect public health.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that BAT and its corporate allies have fundamentally altered the way in which all EU policy is made by making a business-oriented form of IA mandatory. This increases the likelihood that the EU will produce policies that advance the interests of major corporations, including those that produce products damaging to health, rather than in the interests of its citizens. Given that the public health community, focusing on health IA, has largely welcomed the increasing policy interest in IA, this suggests that urgent consideration is required of the ways in which IA can be employed to undermine, as well as support, effective public health policies. Please see later in the article for the Editors'' Summary