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Assessing the contribution of working conditions to socioeconomic disparities in health: A commentary
Author(s) -
Landsbergis Paul A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.20766
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , medicine , psychosocial , ethnic group , health equity , social determinants of health , public health , psychological intervention , gerontology , mediation , confounding , environmental health , immigration , race and health , population , nursing , psychiatry , archaeology , pathology , sociology , anthropology , political science , law , history
Occupational health researchers can play a pivotal role in increasing our understanding of the role of physical and psychosocial working conditions in producing socioeconomic health disparities and trends of increasing socioeconomic health disparities, contributing to interventions to reduce such disparities, and helping to improve public education materials on this subject. However, a number of methodological challenges in this field need to be considered. Methods Commentary, including a review of selected studies. Results/Conclusion Research needs to be guided by models of the associations between social (socioeconomic position (SEP), race/ethnicity, immigration status, and gender) and occupational variables and health, to avoid inappropriate control for confounding, and to specify causal pathways (mediation) and interaction effects. Different approaches to the theory and measurement of SEP also need to be tested. Am. J. Ind. Med. 53:95–103 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.