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Review
. 2023 Jan 10;20(2):1239.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph20021239.

Workers' Health under Algorithmic Management: Emerging Findings and Urgent Research Questions

Emilia F Vignola  1 , Sherry Baron  2 , Elizabeth Abreu Plasencia  2 , Mustafa Hussein  3 , Nevin Cohen  3
Affiliations
Review

Workers' Health under Algorithmic Management: Emerging Findings and Urgent Research Questions

Emilia F Vignola et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Algorithms are increasingly used instead of humans to perform core management functions, yet public health research on the implications of this phenomenon for worker health and well-being has not kept pace with these changing work arrangements. Algorithmic management has the potential to influence several dimensions of job quality with known links to worker health, including workload, income security, task significance, schedule stability, socioemotional rewards, interpersonal relations, decision authority, and organizational trust. To describe the ways algorithmic management may influence workers' health, this review summarizes available literature from public health, sociology, management science, and human-computer interaction studies, highlighting the dimensions of job quality associated with work stress and occupational safety. We focus on the example of work for platform-based food and grocery delivery companies; these businesses are growing rapidly worldwide and their effects on workers and policies to address those effects have received significant attention. We conclude with a discussion of research challenges and needs, with the goal of understanding and addressing the effects of this increasingly used technology on worker health and health equity.

Keywords: algorithmic management; gig economy; platform work; work stress; worker health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Health-related job quality dimensions influenced by algorithmic management.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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