Further decoding the mystery of American pain: The importance of work

A recent paper showed that, whereas we expect pain to rise with age due to accumulated injury, physical wear and tear, and disease, the elderly in America report less pain than those in midlife. Further exploration revealed this pattern was confined to the less educated. The authors called this the ‘mystery of American pain’ since pain appears to rise with age in other countries irrespective of education. Revisiting this issue with the same cross-sectional data we show that what matters in explaining pain through to age 65 is whether one is working or not. The incidence of pain across the life-course is nearly identical for workers in America and elsewhere, but it is greater for non-working Americans than it is for non-workers elsewhere. As in other countries, pain is hump-shaped in age among those Americans out of work but rises a little over the life-course for those in work. Furthermore, these patterns are apparent within educational groups. We show that, if one ascribes age-specific employment rates from other OECD countries to Americans, the age profile of pain in the United States is more similar to that found elsewhere in the OECD. This is because employment rates are lower in the United States than elsewhere between ages 30 and 60: the simulation reduces the pain contribution of these non-workers to overall pain in America, so it looks somewhat similar to pain elsewhere. We conclude that what matters in explaining pain over the life-course is whether one is working or not and once that is accounted for, the patterns are consistent across the United States and the rest of the OECD.

A Systematized Review of Professional Employment Following Thoracic Transplantation

Introduction Acknowledging the evolved landscape in thoracic transplantation, professional employment becomes an important outcome measure to quantify the success of this costly procedure. Objective We aimed to assess rates of and characterize factors associated with professional employment in patients following thoracic transplantation, and create an evidence-base on the relationship between professional employment and relevant outcome parameters. Methods We systematically searched Medline, Cinahl, and GoogleScholar to identify studies published between 1998 and 2021 reporting on professional employment following heart and lung transplantation. Results Twenty-two studies from 11 countries with varying sample sizes (N = 27; 10 066) were included. Employment rates ranged from 19.7% to 69.4% for heart, and from 7.4% to 50.8% for lung transplant recipients. Most frequently reported positively associated factors with employment after transplant were younger age, higher education, and history of pretransplant employment. Longer duration of unemployment prior to transplantation and Medicaid coverage were the most frequently reported negatively associated factors. Relationships between professional employment and clinical outcomes included lower rates of acute and chronic rejection, less infection episodes, and better quality of life among working patients; one study reported a lower 5-year-mortality rate. Reasons not to work were “physical or mental health-related,” “employment-related,” “financial reasons,” and “lifestyle choices.” Discussion Substantial proportions of patients following thoracic transplantation are not professionally employed, potentially diminishing the success of transplantation on individual and societal levels. Considering adverse clinical outcomes in employed transplant recipients were low, more efforts are needed to identify modifiable factors for employment in these populations.

No Country for Non-Graduate Men: The Childish Roots of Adult Job Tasks \& Employment

Male employment has declined across advanced economies as non-graduate men found it increasingly difficult to gain jobs in the wake of technological change and globalisation. This has led to rising earnings and, subsequently, income inequality. Female employment, by contrast, has risen in this period. Previous work has shown changing job task demands explain this pattern - with declining manual tasks penalising men and rising non-routine tasks benefiting women. In this paper, I test whether gendered differences in childhood \& adolescent cognitive, social, perseverance, and emotional-health skills can help explain why men are less adept at non-routine tasks using long-term longitudinal data from the United Kingdom. I find that childhood \& adolescent skills have a significant effect on adult job tasks and employment outcomes. Greater cognitive and childhood emotional-health skills lead to people performing more high-pay analytical and interactive job tasks as adults. Greater cognitive and non-cognitive skills are also associated with higher adult employment levels. Indicative calculations show that gendered differences in these childhood and adolescent skills explain an economically significant decline in the analytical and interactive job tasks performed by non-graduate men as well as their employment rates.

School Leavers With Verified Disabilities

Globally, young adult employment rates have declined in the 21st century. In Australia, youth from non-metropolitan areas have a lower engagement rate in employment than their metropolitan peers, despite one rarely hearing declarations from school leavers that they aim to be unemployed and never work. This chapter investigates transition outcomes for young adults from a non-metropolitan area through a small retrospective study. The purpose is to identify influences that may impact youth engagement in employment or training for school leavers in a small town, and that may be dissimilar from influences affecting their metropolitan counterparts. Research also focuses on the influences affecting transition to employment for school leavers with verified disabilities in non-metropolitan areas and what barriers they experience to accessing employment or study.

Hit Hard but Recover Slowly: The Asymmetric Effects of Social Distancing Policies on the US Labor Market

This study employs a difference-in-differences approach to examine the US labor market response to two widely used social distancing policies, stay-at-home (SAH) order and non-essential business closure, with special attention paid to the asymmetric effect of the policies’ imposition and lifting. Exploiting the variation across states and time, we find that state employment rates declined by 4.3% and 1.9% for the two policies respectively, within one month of the enaction of social distancing policies, but the recovery was slower after the policies were removed. We also highlight that the low-income group suffered the highest employment rate drop from the SAH enaction while presenting the mildest rebound. Self-employed workers were more affected by the policy impositions but recovered slightly faster than wage earners. Our results suggest persistent efforts must be made after the pandemic, especially for more vulnerable groups in the labor market.

Using State Workforce Data to Report Graduate Outcomes

Survey methodology is the dominant approach among universities in the United States for reporting employment outcomes for recent graduates. However, past studies have shown that survey methodology may yield upwardly biased results, which can result in overreporting of employment rates and salary outcomes. This case study describes the development and application of an alternative reporting methodology, by which state wage records are analyzed to determine employment and salary outcomes for recent graduates. Findings at Western Washington University suggest the significant sample sizes that can be achieved using wage record methodology may provide a more reliable option than survey methodology for accurately reporting graduate outcomes.

New Access Routes to Undertreated Populations; How Do Problem Substance Users Recruited from an Unemployment Office Differ from Detoxification Treatment Inpatients?

Background: Only a minority of subjects with substance use disorders (SUDs) are in addiction-specific treatment (treatment gap). Co-operation between an unemployment office and a psychiatric hospital was established for the assessment and counseling of long-term unemployed clients with SUD. We aim at validating whether such a treatment gap exists in that group, and whether clients from an unemployment office differed from a matched group of inpatient detoxification patients with regard to socio-economic characteristics, substance use and treatment history, and the prevalence of mental disorders Methods: Unemployment office clients (n = 166) with an SUD were assessed using a standardized sociodemographic and clinical interview. They were compared with 83 inpatients from a local detoxification ward, matched for age, sex, and primary addictive disorder (matching ratio 2:1). Results: Most (75.9%) subjects were males, with an average age of 36.7 years. The SUDs mostly related to alcohol (63.9%) and cannabis (27.7%). Although most unemployment office clients had a long SUD history, only half of them had ever been in addiction-specific treatment during their lifetime, and only one in four during the last year. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups regarding age at onset of problematic substance use, the proportion of migrants, and prevalence of comorbid mental disorders. The unemployment office sample showed lower levels of education (p < 0.001), job experience (p = 0.009), and current employment rates (p < 0.001). Conversely, inpatients showed lower rates of imprisonment (p < 0.001), more inpatient detoxification episodes (p < 0.03); and longer abstinence periods (p < 0.005). Conclusions: There was a lifetime and recent treatment gap in the group of long-term unemployed subjects with alcohol and cannabis dependence. The markedly lower educational attainment, chronic employment problems and higher degree of legal conflicts in the client group, as compared with patients in detoxification treatment, might require specific access and treatment options. The co-operation between the psychiatric unit and the unemployment office facilitated access to that group.

Employment and Innovation in U.S. Media Industries. 2004-2018

We carry out trend analysis to test two hypotheses. First, digitization has altered traditional routines and skills, resulting in declining employment rates. Second, productivity has grown because firms have recruited more skilled workers with higher wages. We analyze employment and wage tendencies in four communications and media sectors to test them

Employment and Innovation in U.S. Media Industries. 2004-2018

We carry out trend analysis to test two hypotheses. First, digitization has altered traditional routines and skills, resulting in declining employment rates. Second, productivity has grown because firms have recruited more skilled workers with higher wages. We analyze employment and wage tendencies in four communications and media sectors to test them

The Impact of Indoor Environment Quality on People on the Autism Spectrum

<p>People on the autism spectrum are widely reported to have differences in how they process sensory information compared to people not on the autism spectrum (neurotypical). These differences in sensory processing are prevalent regardless of age or IQ level. All people are affected by the built environment, with indoor environment quality (IEQ) linked to comfort, productivity, health and wellbeing. However, there is little research about the direct impact of the built environment on autistic adults. This study investigates whether differences in sensory processing impact how autistic people experience the built environment, and whether there were patterns in the effects of different IEQ factors. Adults on the autism spectrum (n=83), neurotypical control adults (n=134), and adults with other conditions affecting sensory processing or who were closely related to someone on the autism spectrum (n=59) participated in an anonymous online survey. Participants were asked about their home and workplace, experiences of the general built environment, and general sensory sensitivity. Autistic participants, who reported significantly higher sensory processing scores than Control participants, consistently reported higher levels of discomfort in both their home and workplace environments, feeling more overwhelming, stressed, and distracted, and less safe than the Control group in both environments. Though shopping malls, supermarkets, other retail and medical buildings are all essential buildings that people need to frequent to meet material needs and stay healthy, they all caused greater discomfort and distress for Autistic participants, who also avoided them more often. The odds of an Autistic participant avoiding buildings was 8.8 times greater than the Control group. Higher discomfort and distress reported by Autistic participants in office buildings may affects the low employment rates in this population. People and People Noise were the IEQ factors that, across multiple environments, were rated as highest as a cause of discomfort and avoidance and had the largest difference between Autistic and Control participants, followed by Glare and Electric Light. Meanwhile, Temperature was rated equally highly by both groups, having a large effect but no difference between groups, with a similar trend seen in Air Quality and Air Movement. Autistic people already struggle with social isolation, early mortality, and low employment rates, which are likely compounded by greater sensory stress from the built environment. Further research into understanding the relationship between the effects of the indoor environment and the differences in sensory processing in people on the autism spectrum is essential to creating solutions for a more accessible built environment.</p>