Who cares about the health of health care professionals? An 18-year longitudinal study of working time, health, and occupational turnover

Amit Kramer, Jooyeon Son

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Health care workers are employed in a complex, stressful, and sometimes hazardous work environment. Studies of the health of health care workers tend to focus on estimating the effects of short-term health outcomes on employee attitudes and performance, which are easier to observe than long-term health outcomes. Research has paid only scant attention to work characteristics that are controlled by the employer and its employees, and their relationship to employees' long-term physical health and organizational outcomes. The authors use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1992 to 2010 to estimate the relationships among working time, long-term physical health, job satisfaction, and turnover among health care employees. Using a between-and within-person design, they estimate how within-person changes in work characteristics affect the within-person growth trajectory of body mass index (BMI) over time and the relationship between working-time changes and physical health, and occupational turnover. The study finds that health care employees who work more hours suffer from a higher level of BMI and are more likely to leave their occupation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)939-960
Number of pages22
JournalIndustrial and Labor Relations Review
Volume69
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2016

Keywords

  • Health
  • Nurses
  • Occupational turnover
  • Working time

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Strategy and Management
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
  • Management of Technology and Innovation

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