Total worker health and work-life stress

Abstract

Objective: Review relationships between work-life stress and health behaviors to advance understanding of pathways between occupational and individual risk factors and health and safety outcomes.

Methods: A background on the Total Worker Health concept is provided, and a review of research on the relationship between work-life stress and health behaviors is presented.

Results: Research evidence indicates that work-life stress serves as a negative occupational exposure relating to poor health behaviors, including smoking, poor food choices, low levels of exercise, and even decreased sleep time.

Conclusion: The association between work-life stress and adverse health behaviors suggests that interventions at both the occupational (health protection) and individual (health promotion) level may be helpful in mitigating effects of work-life stress, consistent with the Total Worker Health approach. Further study is needed to investigate gains from an integrated prevention strategy.