Work Organization Factors Associated with Health and Work Outcomes among Apprentice Construction Workers: Comparison between the Residential and Commercial Sectors.

Ann Marie Dale,Lisa Hayibor,Diane S Rohlman,Bradley A Evanoff

doi:10.3390/ijerph18178899

Abstract

There are substantial differences in work organization between residential and commercial construction sectors. This paper examined differences in work factors between construction sectors and examined the association between sector and health behaviors, health outcomes, and work outcomes. We surveyed 929 male construction apprentices (44% residential and 56% commercial) and found that residential apprentices reported fewer workplace safety policies, higher frequency of heavy lifting, and greater likelihood of reporting musculoskeletal pain compared to apprentices in commercial work. Residential apprentices reported higher job strain, lower supervisor support, more lost workdays due to pain or injury, and lower productivity related to health than commercial apprentices. Multivariate Poisson regression models controlling for multiple work factors showed that residential construction work, high job strain, heavy lifting, low coworker support, and low supervisor support were each independently associated with one or more work or health outcomes. These findings suggest that interventions should seek to improve coworker and supervisory supportive behaviors, decrease job strain, and reduce organizational stressors, such as mandatory overtime work. Our study shows disparities in health and safety between construction sectors and highlights the need for interventions tailored to the residential sector.

Highlights

We previously studied a cohort of apprentice carpenters and floor layers to examine associations between work organization and environment factors on work and health outcomes of relevance to employers, including missed work due to work-related injury, missed work due to any pain or injury, health-related work ability and productivity, and use of prescription medications for pain [9]
There was no meaningful difference in age (27.8 years overall), years in trade (2.6 years overall), or apprentice training term (59.3% beyond first year of training) between residential and commercial workers. Those working in residential construction were more likely (p < 0.05) to be white (90.4% vs. 85.5%), less likely to be obese (15.7% vs. 23.3%), and less likely to be eligible for union benefits based on hours worked (79.1% vs. 84.7%) than those working in commercial construction
Our results show that health behaviors, health outcomes, and health-related productivity are worse in the residential sector

Summary

Introduction

Work organization has been associated with poor health outcomes in several industries. Common factors that lead to poor health include rotating or long shift work, seasonal jobs, mandatory overtime, and jobs with low autonomy [1,2] These factors are well-known in many industries and include rotating schedules for air traffic controllers [3], long shifts for healthcare [4], mandatory overtime for critical care and public service providers [5,6], and low job autonomy in domestic and food service workers [7,8]. Construction operations incorporate many work organization factors and restrictions on workers that have previously been associated with negative health outcomes [9,10]. The construction industry has other factors that contribute to worker health concerns

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