Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

The workplace has been included in models of social and ecological determinants of health. However, it has not been explored in most health inequity research in the United States. This has created a blind spot that limits our understanding of inequities in health and health care, and impedes our progress toward developing effective systems for health equity in working populations. This presentation describes why the workplace is vital to our understanding of inequities and outlines challenges in incorporating it in the study of health disparities. These include complexity of work as a concept and its overlap with socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and gender. The discussion explores development of a parallel line of inquiry into occupational health inequities and scarcity of data to explore the relationships between work conditions and health status. Therefore, work has profound social impact as it’s directly related to how we define ourselves. Job responsibilities and work conditions are important factors related to health and disease among populations. The significant time spent at work, nature of work, physical and mental demands, degrees of autonomy and authority, and fairness in compensations can be incorporated to determine the impact of work into analysis of health disparities. In conclusion, opportunities for advancing workplace health equity are discussed. Recommendations are made for monitoring progress and robustly include work as an important factor in our efforts to understand health inequities. This is necessary for moving toward eliminating health disparities as stated in the national goals for Healthy People in past two decades.