Chapter 12 – Occupational Health

Stress
- Body’s response to pressure
- Happens when environmental demand has imbalance with capability of the
person

Yerkes-Dodson Law: Key is to look for optimal stress level to push for peak performance

Types of stress:
- Eustress: Results to desirable outcomes
- Distress: Results to undesirable outcomes

Occupational stress: Stress that is intrinsic to the job

- Long hours, risk and danger, work overload or underload
- Environmental factors: role in the org, relationships at work, org structure and
climate

Moderators of Stress
- Personality of workers may moderate stress

Coping with occupational stress

- Cooper-Cummings Model of Stress and Coping
o Emotion-focused strategies: Address adverse emotions
 Massage, meditation, vacations
o Problem-focused strategies: Deals with root of stress
  Time Management, conflict resolution, problem solving

Problem-focused coping is successful long-term, while emotion-based coping is short-

term

Occupational Health and Stress among Filipino Workers

- Family driving force to work, source of support on work stress
- Copes well with stress given the compensation, opportunity to grow, nurture
family
- Can be source of work-life conflict when unusual working hours

Gender and Occupational Health

- Common issues of women in Asia:
o long work hours, shift work, caring role for family and friends, domestic
problems
o poor access to training and protective equipment, lack of legislation to
protect women’s rights
o Less job security and greater workload in Asia

Work-life Balance
- Struggle to meet both personal, professional needs

Promoting and ensuring occupational health

- Fitness programs
- Better work environments
- Leisure/sports activities
- Wellness programs