Societal demands mean that many companies operate throughout the day to provide services. The impact of night work on long-term health is not clear, but there is sufficient evidence for closer monitoring of this as a concern and industry is not sure what more they need to do about this potential problem. There are many health conditions and potential interventions to reduce risks from night working, but there is no clarity on how to design and implement intervention programmes for long-term health issues. This paper reports on a rapid review of 24 articles to examine how interventions can minimise long-term health risk from night work. The analysis has identified eight types of intervention that have been used in relation to seven types of long-term health conditions but has highlighted weaknesses in evaluation, in relation to the current knowledge of the implementation and effectiveness of the interventions for long-term health. Commentary is provided on how researchers and industry practitioners need to think about risk in different ways, improve implementation of interventions through a systemic approach to work design and organisation, and employ more participatory approaches to embed cultural change in organisations.

This study aims to determine the factors that encourage older workers to continue working. This study had an exploratory sequential design using a mixed-methods approach, including interviews and questionnaire surveys. In the interview survey, we targeted 30 workers aged between 60–65 across three manufacturing companies. After using the results of the content analysis in the interviews, we conducted an online questionnaire survey with 1,500 workers aged between 60–89 across the country. We analyzed whether the 15 factors were related to intention to continue working using logistic regression analysis. We identified factors affecting job continuity from three perspectives: individual, company, and life. We determined several factors: health condition, job performance, self-esteem, conservatism, employment system, workload, medical insurance and welfare programs, monetary and non-monetary rewards, relationships, attachment to the organization, distance between living and work, social support, economic situation, and employment policy. In the questionnaire survey, some factors had no relationship with job continuity, including conservatism, employment systems, monetary rewards, and the distance between living and work. Employers and policymakers can use the findings to consider appropriate ways of supporting older workers.

This study investigated association of Perceived Organization Support (POS) with diabetes treatment among workers. This prospective cohort study was conducted online, and parts of nations wide study stratified similarly with workers’ characteristic in Japan. Samples were screened to those who had diabetes in the baseline years. Binary regression analysis and p for trend were used for statistical analysis. There were 1,203 participants with diabetes followed up regarding their treatment behavior. Higher POS were likely to seek appropriate diabetes treatment after adjustment with personal and occupational factors (p=0.032) but became marginally significant when adjusted with night shift status (p=0.051). Further analysis found that POS was only associated with diabetes treatment among workers with night shift. Higher POS was likely associated with proper diabetes treatment specifically among workers with night shift.

We investigated the role of sleep and work hours on wellbeing among day- and shift workers. We tested a mediation-moderation hypothesis proposing that; 1) sleep would mediate the association between the work schedule and the impact of sleep/sleepiness on wellbeing; 2) work hours would moderate the link between work schedule and sleep. We made random phone calls to 1,162 participants and identified 172-d and 130 shift workers that worked ≥35 h/week. The work schedule had a positive indirect effect on the impact of sleep/sleepiness via sleep duration (β=0.0511, SE=0.0309, [0.0008, 0.3219]. The relationship between shift work and sleep duration was negative (β=−0.35, SE=0.14, p<0.01), and sleep duration was negatively associated with a greater impact of sleep/sleepiness on wellbeing (β=−0.15, SE=0.06, p<0.02). The path between the work schedule and sleep duration was moderated by work hours; fewer work hours resulted in shift workers reporting a greater impact of sleep/sleepiness on wellbeing. The results support the mediation-moderation hypothesis. Work hours and sleep duration are key characteristics in work schedule design.

The association between doctors’ long working hours and the seriousness of adverse events with high patient impact has not been fully confirmed. Most previous studies were based on work hour regulations using more than 80 h per week as an indicator of long working hours. We aimed to assess the association using a shorter indicator as the cut-off for long working hours among hospital doctors including senior doctors. This cross-sectional study used 12,245 adverse event reports from the Japan Council for Quality Health Care. We defined long working hours as 55 h or more in the week before the adverse event and assessed the association with the seriousness of adverse events with high patient impact. The results showed that doctors working 55 or more hours in the preceding week were more likely to be involved in serious adverse events than those working fewer hours (odds ratio (OR) 1.22, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.12–1.32). This association remained significant after adjusting for all covariates (OR 1.18, 95% CI: 1.08–1.28). Senior doctors were more likely to be involved in serious adverse events. Long working hours among doctors were associated with the seriousness of adverse events.

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners are at an increased risk of mental disorders in addition to stress directly related to their business performance. However, steps to protect SME owners’ mental health are lacking, and no occupational stress scale has been developed to accurately understand the real-world situation. Based on a nationwide internet survey of 1,000 Japanese SME owners aged 20–79 yr with five or more employees, we developed a novel occupational stress scale for SME owners. The 43-item scale assesses job stress factors and modifying factors (individual, non-work, and buffering factors). The validity and reliability of the scale were verified. The job stress factors were unique among SME owners and differed from those of employees, with moderate positive correlations with both psychological distress and presenteeism. Further, the study revealed the roles of modifying factors; work-family conflict increased presenteeism and psychological distress, while self-care and social support decreased them. The findings provide important insights for assessing psychological stress among SME owners, informing future mental health intervention strategies among this population.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) caused substantial morbidity among occupationally active populations. However, data regarding the longitudinal burden of CVD were limited, particularly among school teachers. The objectives of our study were to estimate the incidence rate of CVD and determine its predictors among school teachers in Peninsular Malaysia through a prospective cohort study. We followed 14,046 eligible school teachers recruited between 2013 and 2014 until 31st December 2021. We accessed three computerised, country-level registries to determine incident CVD cases during the study period from 2013 to 2021. Baseline sociodemographic, lifestyle, work-related and clinical characteristics were recorded. Cox proportional hazard regression models with adjusted hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval were reported. With a median follow-up of 7.71 yr, we observed 209 incident CVD cases (or 195.7 CVD cases per 100,000 person-years). Male gender, age ≥40 yr old, Indian or others ethnicity (as compared to Chinese), family history of CVD, laboratory-confirmed diabetes mellitus, self-reported hypertension, high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high triglyceride were predictors for incident CVD among school teachers. Neither work-related nor lifestyle factors were significantly associated with incident CVD. Screening at-risk teachers for diabetes mellitus, hypertension or dyslipidemia is recommended to delay the onset or progression of CVD.

This study sought to investigate whether association between customer verbal abuse and depressive symptoms differed by workload. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 795 cosmetics sales workers at department store in South Korea. Experience of customer verbal abuse over the past one month was measured by using a yes/no question. Depressive symptoms during the preceding week were assessed by using 20 items from the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale. Workload during the past week was measured by asking the number of customers a worker dealt with on average in a day and classified into two categories: 1) Low (15 people or less), and 2) High (more than 15 people). Cosmetics sales workers’ experience of customer verbal abuse was associated with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.15–1.63). After being stratified by workload, customer verbal abuse showed a statistically significant association with depressive symptoms among high workload groups (PR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.19–1.79), whereas the association was not statistically significant among low workload group (PR: 1.23, 95% CI: 0.91–1.65). Our findings suggest that experience of customer verbal abuse could have a negative influence on depressive symptoms among high-workload cosmetics sales workers in South Korea.

Daily rest period (DRP) refers to the interval between the end of one workday and the start of the next. This study examined the joint association of DRP and sleep duration with subsequent sick leave among Japanese daytime employees. A total of 5,593 participants were assessed for DRP and sleep duration at baseline and for sick leave at a one-year follow-up. They were categorized into ten groups based on their DRP and daily sleep duration. Logistic regression analyses for individuals experiencing sick leave for longer than a month showed that the combination of short DRP (<11 h) and sleep duration (<6 h) had a higher odds ratio (4.981, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.126–22.046) than the reference group. Furthermore, the combination of short DRP and normal sleep duration had a higher odds ratio (8.152, 95% CI=1.801–36.902) than the reference group. Short DRP was associated with subsequent long sick leave.