Comparative Probabilistic Assessment of Occupational Pesticide Exposures Based on Regulatory Assessments

Implementation of probabilistic analyses in exposure assessment can provide valuable insight into the risks of those at the extremes of population distributions, including more vulnerable or sensitive subgroups. Incorporation of these analyses into current regulatory methods for occupational pesticide exposure is enabled by the exposure data sets and associated data currently used in the risk assessment approach of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Monte Carlo simulations were performed on exposure measurements from the Agricultural Handler Exposure Database and the Pesticide Handler Exposure Database along with data from the Exposure Factors Handbook and other sources to calculate exposure rates for three different neurotoxic compounds (azinphos methyl, acetamiprid, emamectin benzoate) across four pesticide‐handling scenarios. Probabilistic estimates of doses were compared with the no observable effect levels used in the EPA occupational risk assessments. Some percentage of workers were predicted to exceed the level of concern for all three compounds: 54% for azinphos methyl, 5% for acetamiprid, and 20% for emamectin benzoate. This finding has implications for pesticide risk assessment and offers an alternative procedure that may be more protective of those at the extremes of exposure than the current approach.     

The Great Migration to the North and the “Black Metropolis” of the early twentieth century: A reevaluation of the role of Black community size

By some accounts, large Black populations in northern cities aided Blacks’ employment in occupations of the “Black Metropolis” at the start of the Great Migration. Yet, the present study, analyzing Census data, refutes these accounts. Blacks’ odds of employment in such occupations – for example, mass media and cultural expression – were often greatest in major northern cities with the smallest Black populations, consistent with the proposition that small and stable minority communities avoid intense discrimination. Overall, however, there is little evidence that Black population size substantially affected Blacks’ employment in Black Metropolis occupations.     

Assessing Occupational Exposure via the Unbalanced One-Way Random Effects Model

In this article, an unbalanced one-way random effects model is considered for the log-transformed shift-long exposure measurements. Exact test and confidence interval for the proportion of workers whose mean exposure exceeds the occupational exposure limit are developed based on the concepts of generalized p-value and generalized confidence interval. Some simulation results to compare the performance of the proposed test with that of the existing method are reported. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method appears to have significant gain in the size and power.     

Job insecurity, coping resources and personality dispositions in occupational strain

This paper presents research on the relationships between the work-related stressor of perceived job insecurity and various indicators of occupational strain, taking into account employees' personality dispositions (trait negative and positive affectivity) and coping resources. Respondents were 222 Australian public servants surveyed during organizational restructuring that involved downsizing and threat to job certainty. The research was formulated within an adaptation of Osipow, Doty, and Spokane's (1985) framework of stress-strain-coping that included the possible direct as well as moderating effects of personality dispositions in reporting occupational strain (Parkes, 1990). Findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicate consistent significant independent effects of personality dispositions, coping resources and perceived job insecurity on various indicators of strain. There was also support for the moderating roles of negative affectivity and self-care in the relation between perceived job insecurity and physical strain. Implications for the role of dispositional factors, especially negative affectivity, and the utility of various coping resources in accounting for occupational strain in times of threatened job security are discussed.     

Development of an e-health education program at the workplace using formative research – Technologies for improving quality of life

Backgrounde-Learning, a means by which to expand people’s access to information can be effective in promoting health in the workplace. This study to present steps in the development of an e-health education program at the workplace.ObjectiveThis study aimed to present all steps of develop a telehealth education program for computer users using formative research to identify themes to health education for workers.MethodsA team of expert conducted focus groups with administrative workers (n = 36 participants) to identify thematic health to the development of program. Three meetings were audio video recorded, and notes. All data were based on constant analysis, classical content analysis and keywords in-context.ResultsThe content of the nine audio videos included four musculoskeletal health topics (Walking Program, Back School, Muscle Relaxation Techniques, and Work-related Musculoskeletal Diseases); three to healthy diet (Eating and Commensality, Ultra-processed Food and Food labeling, and Oil and Fat); two to mental health (Burnout Syndrome and the Meaning of work).ConclusionThe proposed steps in the development of a workplace e-health education program were successfully achieved. The engagement of the workers’ staged focus groups was fundamental to the choice of themes relevant to the population in question.     

Religious Dynamics and Marital Dissolution: A Latent Class Approach

Past research on religious homogamy has struggled to distinguish whether religiosity or homogamy has a stronger impact on preventing a marital dissolution. To rectify this problem, I use a latent class approach to compare couples with various forms of partner religiosity and similarity. Based on 707 newlywed couples from the Marriage Matters survey (1998–2004), I discovered four latent classes: “holy” couples (both partners are highly religious), “nonattending” couples (both partners identify as religious but don’t regularly attend services), “unbalanced” couples (the wife is religious but the husband is not), and “secular” couples (both partners are not religious). Findings indicate that holy, nonattending, and unbalanced couples experience less odds of divorce compared with secular couples, suggesting that religiosity in a variety of forms is more important than partner similarity in avoiding divorce.     

专业社会工作者的涵义与要件

基于去年上海社会工作职业化步伐的迈进,一批职业的社会工作者开始涌现上海。但对于专业社会工作者的界定,许多人还很模糊。本文从专业社会工作者的内涵、任职条件与素质要求作了一番介绍,使之与志愿者、一般的社会服务人员及某些相关领域的专业人士相区分,以利于澄清专业社会工作者的概念。     

跨国移民与学缘网络——以日本D大学中国人研究者为个案

国际移民的研究中一直以关注移民的文化适应、移民与移入地居民的互动、移民网络的建构及移民社区的形成为主流,但是当今世界的国际移民群体已经发生了分化．不仅存在低人力资本的国际移民,同样存在着高人力资本的移民,他们的受教育程度、社会经济地位普遍高于移人地居民,本研究通过70个样本的个案研究发现,在他们的国际移民实践中,对血缘和地缘网络的依赖程度十分有限,他们更热衷于构建跨越区域空间的学缘网络、这不仅成为他们孤独的移民生活的情感寄托,也成为他们职业发展的需要。     

The association between husbands’ and wives’ labor market positions in the Netherlands

This study describes (1) the association between husbands’ and wives’ employment statuses and occupations in the Netherlands, (2) establishes possible trends in the association, and (3) explores to what extent the association can be attributed to educational homogamy. We use 12 waves of the Dutch Labor Force Survey (1994–2006), and use log-linear models to analyze the associations between the labor market positions of spouses. Overall, we find positive associations, implying that favorable positions are accumulated within households. For couples with children, the association between spouses’ employment status is negative, which means that they divide paid labor. Over birth cohorts, the association between spouses’ employment statuses becomes stronger, and between spouses’ occupational success remains stable. Education is an important contributor to the occupational association, but still half of the association between spouses’ success cannot be attributed to spouses’ education.     

Do displaced workers lose occupational prestige?

Worker displacement has become a common feature of employment in the “flexible economy.” While studies of income losses and the duration of unemployment after displacement abound, and popular accounts argue that workers often lose status, less empirical attention has been paid to the quality or prestige of employment displaced workers are able to secure after a downsizing event. This paper helps to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on changes in occupational prestige among a nationally representative sample of displaced workers who became reemployed from the January 2004 Displaced Workers and Employee Tenure Supplement of the Current Population Survey. Our findings show that displaced workers with higher levels of education, net of other factors, fared significantly better than others in job quality upon reemployment, highlighting the importance of education in retaining status and privilege in the new economy.