Social science & medicine
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Social science & medicine · Oct 2006
Workplace conflict resolution and the health of employees in the Swedish and Finnish units of an industrial company.
New patterns of working, the globalisation of production and the introduction of information technologies are changing the way we work. This new working environment has eliminated some risks whilst introducing others. The importance of the psychosocial working environment for the health of employees is now well documented, but the effects of managerial style have received relatively little attention. ⋯ Results show significantly lower likelihoods of reporting stress, poor general health, exhaustion or sickness absence amongst employees who report that differences of opinion are resolved through discussion compared to those who report that no attempts are made. No significant differences were found between those who reported that differences were resolved through use of authority and subjects in the 'no attempt' category. These results suggest that the workplace conflict resolution is important in the health of employees in addition to traditional psychosocial work environment risk factors.
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Social science & medicine · Oct 2006
The black-white suicide paradox: possible effects of misclassification.
This research addresses the paradox that the crude and age-adjusted suicide rates of United States blacks are less than half those of whites despite similar risks. Upper and lower limits for true suicide rates are estimated to assess the potential for differential suicide misclassification by race. Construction of these two rate scenarios respectively incorporate one or all of the three cause-of-death categories identified in the literature as most prone to obscure suicides: injury of undetermined intent and unintentional poisonings and drownings. ⋯ Results strongly indicate greater susceptibility of medico-legal authorities to misclassify black suicides than white suicides. To demystify the racial suicide paradox, research is needed on medical histories and other biographical information that are accessible by the authorities in equivocal cases. To meet the standards of evidence-based medicine and public health, high-quality suicide data are an imperative for risk group delineation; risk factor identification; policy formulation; program planning, implementation, and evaluation; and ultimately, effective prevention.