Enabling Social Work Students to Deal with the Consequences of Political Conflict: Engaging with Victim/Survivor Service Users and a ‘Pedagogy of Discomfort’

This paper describes the evaluation of an educational project, delivered in a Bachelor in Social Work degree (BSW) program in Northern Ireland. The project aimed to equip social work students to be more culturally competent in this divided society, with a central focus on including victim/survivor service users in social work training. A number of pedagogical approaches are noted, with particular consideration of Boler's ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ as a model that includes the multidimensional nature of the learning process when topics carry a high emotional tariff. The evaluation of the students' experience indicated that: there was strong support among students for the project; the unique contribution of service users was affirmed; and the project appeared to increase students' awareness and capacity to practice in a divided society. The evaluation of the trainers' experience highlighted key processes in the delivery of collaborative training. The authors argue that the lessons learned are broadly applicable to other forms of service user and carer involvement in social work training and in other societies in which health and social care professionals have to deal with the legacies of political conflict.

Do obesity and sleep problems cluster in the workplace?:A multivariate, multilevel study

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the co-occurrence of obesity and sleep problems among employees and workplaces. METHODS: We obtained data from 39 873 men and women working in 3040 workplaces in 2000-2002 (the Finnish Public Sector Study). Individual- and workplace-level characteristics were considered as correlates of obesity and sleep problems, which were modelled simultaneously using a multivariate, multilevel approach. RESULTS: Of the participants, 11% were obese and 23% reported sleep problems. We found a correlation between obesity and sleep problems at both the individual [correlation coefficient 0.048, covariance 0.047, standard error (SE) 0.005) and workplace (correlation coefficient 0.619, covariance 0.068, SE 0.011) level. The latter, but not the former, correlation remained after adjustment for individual- and workplace-level confounders, such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, shift work, alcohol consumption, job strain, and proportion of temporary employees and manual workers at the workplace. CONCLUSIONS: Obese employees and those with sleep problems tend to cluster in the same workplaces, suggesting that, in addition to targeting individuals at risk, interventions to reduce obesity and sleep problems might benefit from identifying "risky" workplaces.

Towards a Pedagogy of Public Criminology

In light of recent debates on ‘public criminology’, this paper chooses to focus on teaching as a way of reaching more publics. The various characteristics of a more public and engaged discipline are discussed and applied specifically to the teaching of criminology, including the relative merits and demerits of reorienting teaching in this way. Following on from this discussion, the paper proceeds to outline some practical ways in which this vision can be realised. Given the many affinities betweenthe Burawoyan concept of public ‘-ologies’ and the scholarship of learning and teaching, an argument is advanced for teaching as one of the first steps towards the practice of a more public criminology.

Chronic workplace stress and insufficient physical activity: a cohort study

Objectives To examine whether exposure to workplace stressors predicts changes in physical activity and the risk of insufficient physical activity.

Methods Prospective data from the Finnish Public Sector Study. Repeated exposure to low job control, high job demands, low effort, low rewards and compositions of these (job strain and effort-reward imbalance) were assessed at Time 1 (2000-2002) and Time 2 (2004). Insufficient physical activity (<14 metabolic equivalent task hours per week) was measured at Time 1 and Time 3 (2008). The effect of change in workplace stressors on change in physical activity was examined using fixed-effects (within-subject) logistic regression models (N=6665). In addition, logistic regression analysis was applied to examine the associations between repeated exposure to workplace stressors and insufficient physical activity (N=13 976). In these analyses, coworker assessed workplace stressor scores were used in addition to individual level scores.

Results The proportion of participants with insufficient physical activity was 24% at baseline and 26% at follow-up. 19% of the participants who were sufficiently active at baseline became insufficiently active at follow-up. In the fixed-effect analysis, an increase in workplace stress was weakly related to an increase in physical inactivity within an individual. In between-subjects analysis, employees with repeated exposure to low job control and low rewards were more likely to be insufficiently active at follow-up than those with no reports of these stressors; fully adjusted ORs ranged from 1.11 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.24) to 1.21 (95% CI 1.05 to 1.39).

Conclusions Workplace stress is associated with a slightly increased risk of physical inactivity.

Workplace social capital and adherence to antihypertensive medication:a cohort study

While hypertension is a common and treatable health problem, adherence to antihypertensive medication remains a challenge. This study examines the hypothesis that workplace social capital may influence adherence to antihypertensive medication among hypertensive employees.

Workplace determinants of social capital:cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from a finnish cohort study

To examine which contextual features of the workplace are associated with social capital.

A lesson in business: cost-effectiveness analysis of a novel financial incentive intervention for increasing physical activity in the workplace

Background: Recently both the UK and US governments have advocated the use of financial incentives to encourage healthier lifestyle choices but evidence for the cost-effectiveness of such interventions is lacking. Our aim was to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of a quasi-experimental trial, exploring the use of financial incentives to increase employee physical activity levels, from a healthcare and employer’s perspective.

Methods: Employees used a ‘loyalty card’ to objectively monitor their physical activity at work over 12 weeks. The Incentive Group (n=199) collected points and received rewards for minutes of physical activity completed. The No Incentive Group (n=207) self-monitored their physical activity only. Quality of life (QOL) and absenteeism were assessed at baseline and 6 months follow-up. QOL scores were also converted into productivity estimates using a validated algorithm. The additional costs of the Incentive Group were divided by the additional quality adjusted life years (QALYs) or productivity gained to calculate incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Cost-effectiveness acceptability curves (CEACs) and population expected value of perfect information (EVPI) was used to characterize and value the uncertainty in our estimates.

Results: The Incentive Group performed more physical activity over 12 weeks and by 6 months had achieved greater gains in QOL and productivity, although these mean differences were not statistically significant. The ICERs were £2,900/QALY and £2,700 per percentage increase in overall employee productivity. Whilst the confidence intervals surrounding these ICERs were wide, CEACs showed a high chance of the intervention being cost-effective at low willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds.

Conclusions: The Physical Activity Loyalty card (PAL) scheme is potentially cost-effective from both a healthcare and employer’s perspective but further research is warranted to reduce uncertainty in our results. It is based on a sustainable “business model” which should become more cost-effective as it is delivered to more participants and can be adapted to suit other health behaviors and settings. This comes at a time when both UK and US governments are encouraging business involvement in tackling public health challenges.

The prospective effects of workplace violence on physicians' job satisfaction and turnover intentions: the buffering effect of job control

Background: Health care professionals, including physicians, are at high risk of encountering workplace violence. At the same time physician turnover is an increasing problem that threatens the functioning of the health care sector worldwide. The present study examined the prospective associations of work-related physical violence and bullying with physicians’ turnover intentions and job satisfaction. In addition, we tested whether job control would modify these associations.

Methods: The present study was a 4-year longitudinal survey study, with data gathered in 2006 and 2010.The present sample included 1515 (61% women) Finnish physicians aged 25–63 years at baseline. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted while adjusting for gender, age, baseline levels, specialisation status, and employment sector.

Results: The results of covariance analyses showed that physical violence led to increased physician turnover intentions and that both bullying and physical violence led to reduced physician job satisfaction even after adjustments. We also found that opportunities for job control were able to alleviate the increase in turnover intentions resulting from bullying.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that workplace violence is an extensive problem in the health care sector and may lead to increased turnover and job dissatisfaction. Thus, health care organisations should approach this problem through different means, for example, by giving health care employees more opportunities to control their own work.

Successful but Unappealing: Fifteen Years of Workplace Partnership in Ireland:Special Issue: Partnership, Collaboration and Mutual Gains

This paper presents the first comprehensive review and assessment of Ireland's influential 15-year experiment with workplace partnership. The paper reviews the outcomes of workplace partnership and explains the limited adoption of partnership in the private and public sectors, drawing on the authors' experiences as participants in policy initiatives concerned with promoting partnership in the workplace. Although the promotion of partnership was to the fore in public policy between the late 1990s to the onset of the recession and successful outcomes were reported for the main stakeholders where partnerships were established, the paper explains why the concept nevertheless remained largely unappealing across the private and public sectors.

Power, Pedagogy and Participation: ethics and pragmatics in research with young people

This article addresses issues of methodology and ethical reflexivity when attempting to investigate the opinions of young people. Drawing specifically on three studies of young people's understandings of citizenship and their views on topical issues, two from England and one from Lebanon, the authors present ways in which the ethical and practical challenges of such research can be met. While acknowledging the power relationship between researchers and informants, they suggest that what they call ‘pedagogical research approaches’ built on a participative methodology can open up a space where both parties benefit. They argue that, when working in schools, teacher educators can take advantage of this status to present themselves simultaneously as insiders and outsiders. The authors have devised what are intended to be non-exploitative research instruments that permit the gathering of useful qualitative data during a short encounter. They illustrate their approach with examples of classroom activities they have developed to provide simultaneously a valid learning experience and usable data.