Forschung
Occupational Health Psychology
In my research I specialized in Occupational Health Psychology (OHP), which combines the areas of work psychology, health psychology and occupational health. OHP is concerned with psychosocial characteristics of the workplace such as job demands, job control, and the social work environment and their effect on employee health and well-being. Health and well-being variables range from physical health, for example, cardiovascular disease, to mental health such as psychological distress, burnout or depression. Occupational health psychologists also look into how psychosocial work characteristics affect motivational components of employees such as job satisfaction, commitment and work engagement.
Project "A participatory intervention project for home care workers"
Positive interventions and resources orientation in the work setting
Project "Happy and engaged at work"
Psychosocial work characteristics, job perspectives and well-being among immigrant and low qualified employees
Research in Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) has made great advances in the last three decades. Yet, immigrant and low qualified employees have received little attention. While research in the field of public health provides burgeoning evidence for ethnic health disparities and the need to reach out to this underserved population, occupational health psychologists have hardly addressed immigrant employees as they are difficult to reach and to survey.
My research in this area focuses on (1) developing methodologies that address psychosocial work characteristics and well-being among multiethnic, multilingual, low literacy worker populations, (2) investigating psychosocial working conditions and their relation to employee health and (3) developing and evaluating interventions for reducing exposure to occupational risk factors at work.
On-going projects
Objective: The current youth unemployment rate Spain has reached shocking 40 %. In consequence, Spanish professionals are seeking employment opportunities outside of Spain. In this project with partners from Spain and the US we are exploring the motivation of Spanish professionals for labor migration along with push and pull factors, job expectations, and consequences for psychological and physical well-being.
Project partner: Kaori Fujishiro, PhD, National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOSH), USA
Duration: 2011–2013
A participatory intervention project for home care workers
Objective: In this NIOSH funded project we successfully designed and evaluated an occupational safety and health intervention for multi-ethnic home care workers in California. The intervention aims at raising awareness towards occupational hazards and to promote health behavior change. Using a community based participatory research approach home care workers, community partners and researchers jointly developed intervention and evaluation tools, thus ensuring the outreach to the community.
For further information please visit the project website.
Principal investigator: S. Baron, MD, NIOSH, Co-investigators: C. Heaney, PhD, Stanford University, L. Stock, UC Berkeley
Duration: 2007-2011
Positive interventions and resources orientation in the work setting
Recent changes in the economic, technological and social organization of work have lead to increasing demands on both organizations and their employees. Employees contribute significantly to the success of the organization, and so, it is important for organizations to enhance their strengths and meet their work-related needs. If an employee has enough resources to deal with the work requirements, s/he can better manage challenges in everyday work.
Since the 1990s, psychology researchers have been investigating the internal and contextual factors that make a person happy or enhance a person’s level of happiness. This field of psychological research, called Positive Psychology, examines factors such as well-being and satisfaction (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). It focuses on building personal resources and positive qualities in life. Occupational health psychologists have recently followed this approach in taking a more resource-oriented perspective when studying the effect of work experiences on employee well-being.
On-going projects
Objective: In this project we aim to examine the impact that a short work-related reflection can have on one’s well-being, both in work, and in one’s private life. The project is a collaboration between researchers from five universities across three countries (Germany, Ireland and Canada), and will consist of several studies.
For a more detailed description of aims and scope please visit the project website (http://macs2.psychologie.hu-berlin.de/wellbeingatwork/).
Project partners: A. Michel, PhD, Universität Heidelberg, D. O’Shea, PhD, Limerick University, G. Gonzalez, PhD, Guelph University, A. Steidle, PhD, Universität Stuttgart
Duration: 2010-2012
