Many research studies have found significant associations between the organization of work, psychosocial factors and adverse health outcomes, including hypertension, musculoskeletal disorders, psychological distress and low birth weight. Much of this work has been conducted in highly industrialized countries in Europe, the United States and Japan, yet urbanization and industrialization is proceeding rapidly in many developing nations. There is a need to expand psychosocial stress research and training to include these countries, especially with the rise of multinational production of goods and services.
There is a growing consensus for the need for systematic surveillance of worksites to identify populations at high risk of exposure to noxious psychosocial risk factors. Surveillance of multiple occupations allows the establishment of national norms by which high risk groups and workplaces can be identified. Systematic surveillance requires the training of a new generation of occupational health workers familiar with the role of psychosocial factors in illness, the conduct of survey research and the assessment of relevant health outcomes.
The U. of California at Irvine and UCLA Centers for Occupational and Environmental Health have recently initiated a comprehensive Surveillance, Training and Early Prevention Program (STEP) to reduce the burden of workplace related psychosocial stress disorders including burnout, repetitive motion injuries, hypertension and CVD. As part of the STEP, the UCLA School of Public Health and COEH have initiated a training program with a grant from APA/NIOSH to develop a graduate curriculum in occupational health psychology to train health workers to identify and reduce the burden of occupational psychosocial risk factors.
There is a great need to implement this approach to psychosocial factors in developing countries where the burden of workplace related disease is enormous and growing. One possibility is to apply the UCLA training program to Mexico through the vehicle of the UCLA-Fogarty Program, an international training grant for Mexico funded by the Fogarty International Center of NIH.
We propose three initial projects:
1) A one-to-two workshop on conducting surveillance at the workplace
with a focus on psychosocial factors as they impact on mental
and physical health outcomes.
The workshop will provide a comprehensive review of current research
findings on the role of psychosocial factors in the etiology of
mental health disorders, repetitive motion injuries and hypertension
and cardiovascular disease. Students will develop skills in conducting
workplace surveillance and obtaining work histories of psychosocial
exposures. Surveillance will allow for the determination of prevalence
rates for psychosocial factors, health outcomes and the relationship
between the two. Surveillance at multiple worksites will allow
comparisons leading to the identification of high risk workplaces.
(Faculty: Peter Schnall, Kanan Patel-Coleman, and others.)
2) Short-term training at UCLA for a graduate student enrolled
at a Mexican institution
A student interested in psychosocial factors at the workplace
would be provided an opportunity to participate in several UCLA/UCI
COEH activities, including: a) coursework (CHS 278, Intro to Occupational
Health Psychology), b) a 2-unit tutorial on workplace surveillance
and work health history assessment supervised by Peter Schnall
and Kanan Patel-Coleman, c) literature/library research and d)
a research project. The research project will be developed by
the student in collaboration with Mexican and UCLA/UCI faculty.
Some financial support is available from the UCLA-Fogarty Program
for the research.
3) Supervision of a doctoral student in Mexico to design and conduct
a psychosocial stressor/workplace surveillance project.
The student would be expected to develop, in collaboration with
Mexican and UCLA/UCI faculty, a doctoral thesis proposal involving
surveillance of psychosocial factors and health outcomes at a
workplace. If needed, additional training can be provided at UCLA/UCI
(see #2 above). Some financial support is available from the UCLA-Fogarty
Program for the research.
Consideration should be given to implementing similar training efforts in other settings.