Fatigue and the Need for Recovery among Latino/a Immigrant Cattle Feedyard Workers

Job stressors and burnout among clinical nurses: a moderated mediation model of need for recovery and career calling

BACKGROUND

Burnout is a major concern in healthcare professions. Although theory and empirical evidence support the relationship between job stressors and burnout, the question remains how and when the job stressors are related to burnout. Based on conservation of resources theory and effort recovery model, the current study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of the effect of job stressors on burnout by investigating the mediating role of need for recovery and the moderating role of career calling.

METHODS

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among 709 nurses enrolled from eight public hospitals in China. The Work Stressors Scale, Psychological Detachment Scale, Brief Calling Scale, and Maslach Burnout Inventory were used to collect data. Hierarchical regression analysis with bootstrapping procedure was performed to test the proposed model.

RESULTS

The results showed that need for recovery mediated the job stressors-burnout relationship, and that high career calling buffered against the relationships between job stressors and need for recovery and burnout. Furthermore, the result revealed a moderated mediation model that career calling buffered the indirect effect of job stressors on burnout through need for recovery.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that environmental demands and personal resource are important antecedents of nurses' burnout. Career calling as personal resources can serve as a protective factor that guards against burnout. Thus, nursing managers can reduce nurse burnout by focusing on effective strategies related to recovery experiences, as well as investing in training career calling.

A Narrative Review of Fatigue in Agriculture and Its Impact on Injury and Fatality in Australia

OBJECTIVES

To identify current knowledge about the role of fatigue in occupational injury in the agricultural sector and briefly assess potential intervention approaches.

METHODS

Narrative review of peer reviewed literature (in English) from 2010 to 2022 focusing on fatigue in agricultural and other sectors. Data were extracted from Medline, Scopus, and Google Scholar.

RESULTS

The initial search revealed 6,031 papers, of these 33 met the inclusion criteria. The literature unanimously agreed that fatigue contributes to occupational injury in agriculture and related industries. However, there was a scarcity of literature specific to Australia or agriculture. This limits the ability to draw conclusions about the true relationship between fatigue and injury.

CONCLUSION

While fatigue is likely a major contributor to occupational injury in Australian agriculture, the limited literature impedes the ability to draw conclusions and extrapolate interventions used by other industries that are practical and feasible, to agriculture. Future studies should establish the nature of the problem in Australian agriculture and consult with members of the sector to establish the best interventions to ameliorate the problem, then implement and robustly evaluate intervention studies.

Associations of Work-Related Injuries and Stress to Family and Youth Wellbeing among U.S. Latino/a Immigrant Cattle Feedyard Workers

Based on the Ecological Stress-Based Model of Immigrant Worker Safety and Health, we hypothesized that occupational stress and physical safety would be negatively linked to workers' depression, which in turn, would increase family conflict and decrease youth prosocial behaviors. A total of 242 Latino immigrant cattle feedyard workers from Nebraska and Kansas (90.9% male; M age = 37.7 years) answered questions assessing depression, occupational stress, whether they had ever been injured at work, familial conflict, and youth prosocial behaviors. All four indirect relations among occupational stress and injury and the outcomes (family conflict and youth prosocial behaviors) via depressive symptomatology were significant. Additionally, ever injured was negatively related to youth prosocial behaviors and occupational stress was positively related to youth prosocial behaviors. The findings support our model and suggest that increased stress and work-related injuries on cattle feedyards are linked to mental health problems, which in turn, is linked to more conflict experienced at home and less youth prosocial behaviors. Feedyard employers should focus on improving safety culture including providing robust training in the workplace. Practical implications to improve availability and access to mental and behavioral health resources to mitigate negative family outcomes are provided.

The TN Visa: The Future of Foreign Workers in Livestock Production

Agricultural employers have faced extreme challenges in recruiting and retaining an adequate workforce. Various societal changes have made hiring local workers into agricultural jobs difficult. Therefore, there is a growing reliance on foreign workers and visa programs to meet labor demands. One such program, the TN visa, can be an effective and useful tool for recruiting professional labor for livestock operations, and many agricultural employers have already seen its value. It is likely that the use of the TN program will continue to grow in the future. However, there is opportunity for misuse and abuse of the TN program because there are few administrative rules and limited oversight. We offer recommendations to improve the TN program and the well-being of TN professionals including additional oversight of the program, transparency in recruiting and contracting workers, educating TN workers about U.S. labor rights, ensuring fair pay, and allowing a path to work authorization for TN workers' spouses and children who accompany them in the U.S. Clearly, sustainable solutions to the farm labor shortage are needed. As a field, we need to better understand workforce recruitment and retention concerns as well as mechanisms being used to address such concerns and their impact on workers' health, safety, and well-being.

Structural Competency and Agricultural Health and Safety: An Opportunity to Foster Equity within Agriculture

The future of agricultural work in the United States (U.S.) must account for at least two important trends: 1) the persistence of the industry being riddled with high rates of injury and illness and 2) the growing proportion of hired farmworkers compared to family farmworkers working in these dangerous environments. These workers confront structural disadvantages that impede social justice and prosperity. Social structures like policies, economic systems, institutions, and social hierarchies create health disparities, often along the lines of social categories. The result is an already dangerous industry with vulnerable workers facing unjust risks, especially those that are undocumented. Agricultural health and safety professionals and other stakeholders should engage structural competency curricula in order to increase awareness of impact of structures and be better positioned to improve farmworker health and wellbeing. Similar work has been successful in the training healthcare professionals, e.g. the Structural Competency Working Group (SCWG). New strategies are needed to improve farmworker wellbeing and retain an adequate agricultural workforce. A greater understanding of the social and structural concerns that farmworkers face is an important step towards occupational and social justice. It is also clear that it will require collaboration and community-based efforts creating a larger team of people using similar concepts related to the structural influences on whether health and wellbeing are distributed equitably. This work is being moved forward in healthcare, social work, worker organizations, and community-based initiatives. Agricultural health and safety professionals have a vital contribution to make if they join the ranks.

Occupational Injuries among Latino/a Immigrant Cattle Feedyard Workers in the Central States Region of the United States

Agriculture is a dangerous industry with high rates of occupational injuries. Immigrants comprise the majority of the hired agricultural workforce in the United States, and these workers may be at a higher risk for job-related injuries. This study addressed the frequency, characteristics, and risk factors of occupational injuries among Latino immigrant cattle feedyard workers. Data were collected through structured interviews with Latino immigrant cattle feedyard workers in Kansas and Nebraska (n = 243; 90.9% male). Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to identify risk factors for injury. Nearly three-fourths of participants (71.2%) reported having experienced one or more injuries in the past while working on a cattle feedyard. The most frequent types of reported injuries, including those not requiring medical care, were bruises/contusions (40%), cuts/lacerations (21%), and sprains/strains (12%). These injuries were mainly caused by animals/livestock (33%), chemicals (23%), falls (12%), and tools (9%). Significant risk factors for injury included male gender (OR 5.9), being over age 35 (OR 2.6), working on a large or an extra-large feedyard (OR 5.4), having 11 or more employees on the feedyard (OR 3.6), and working more than eight hours a day (OR 4.7). Having received safety training was also associated with greater risk of injury in a univariable model (OR 2.6). Cattle feedyard workers are at high risk for injury and require more effective preventive measures.