IER News & blogs
IER leads new research on creating healthy jobs
IER has been awarded £1.5 million by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to lead a major study on job quality and health. Led by IER’s Director Professor Chris Warhurst, the project will explore how job design affects workers' mental and physical well-being. Poor job quality has been linked to long-term sickness absence and economic inactivity. For more information see the University of Warwick press release.
Is it the past or the present? Employment quality, unemployment history, psychological distress and mental wellbeing in the UK
Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment “scarring” has not yet been explored. Drawing on UK data the article, assessed the links between individuals’ employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. The results help further understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.
Tackling workplace dementia the focus of a new project
Warwick Institute for Employment Research is a research partner on a new project led by the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) that has secured a grant of £1.2 million aimed at tackling dementia in the workplace. Other research partners are Lancaster University, Northumbria University, Edinburgh Napier University, and Wilfrid Laurier University.
World Mental Health Day: Highlighting the role of job quality - Blog by Rebeka Balogh
The 10th of October is World Mental Health Day and this year’s theme stresses that good mental health should be a human right for all. Currently, this is sadly far from reality.
Mental health conditions may be a barrier to work. And it is increasingly clear that mental health inequalities are also present amongst those in work. The quality of jobs and employment have implications for workers’ mental health and wellbeing.
Establishing a new National Centre for Creating Healthy Jobs
IER hosted a meeting at the RSA in London in mid-March on its initiative to establish a new National Centre for Creating Healthy Jobs.
The aim of the centre is to minimise the number of jobs that lead to ill-health and increase the number that support good health.