The Alcohol and Health Outcomes of Work Restructing

这项研究代表着一个项目的继续和延伸，该项目询问工作场所重组过程是否会对员工的饮酒和健康造成不利影响，程度如何，以及在什么情况下。报告特别询问，“裁员”和“重组”在美国制造企业中越来越普遍，是否会增加员工的压力和不满程度，从而导致问题饮酒行为和健康状况不佳。此外，它还问，在重组的环境中，员工群体中的某些群体是否发现自己在酒精和健康问题上面临着特别大的风险--主要是老年人和那些有饮酒倾向的人--以及为什么会出现这种情况。这项研究使用了纵向面板设计，这样就可以更自信地就重组对员工幸福感的影响做出因果陈述，从饮酒、心理健康和身体健康的角度进行理解。它建立在调查人员多年来对工作、工作场所组织、问题饮酒和健康结果之间联系的研究基础上，并试图填补重要的经验和理论空白。这项研究将在美国最大和最重要的制造公司之一进行，该公司的裁员和工作重组已经进行了多年，其员工在亲身经历这些变化的程度上表现出很大的差异(因此，提供了我们关键研究变量的相当大的差异)，其员工具有广泛的人口统计特征和工作技能(从半熟练的组装工作到航空工程)。这项提案要求提供经费，以支持对1997年初和2000年初调查的小组样本进行另外两次调查。

This research represents the continuation and extension of a project that asks whether, to what degree, and under what circumstances the process of workplace restructuring has adverse drinking and health consequences for employees. It asks, in particular, whether "downsizing" and "reengineering," increasingly common among American manufacturing firms, contribute to problematic drinking behavior and ill health by heightening levels of stress and dissatisfaction among employees. It asks, moreover, whether certain groups among employee populations find themselves especially "at risk" for alcohol and health problems in a restructuring environment-mainly w=anagers and those with "escapist" drinking orientations--and why this might be the case. The research uses a longitudinal panel design so that causal statements can be made more confidently about the impact of restructuring on the well-being of employees, understood in terms of alcohol involvement, mental health, and physical health. It builds on years of research by the investigators on the link between jobs, workplace organization, and problem drinking and health outcomes, and attempts to fill important empirical and theoretical lacunae. The research will be conducted in one of America's largest and most important manufacturing firms where downsizing and job reengineering have been going on for years, whose employees show wide variation in the degree to which they have personally experienced these changes (thus, providing considerable variation on our key study variables), and whose employees have a wide range of demographic characteristics and job skills (ranging from semi-skilled assembly work to aeronautical engineering). This proposal asks for funding to support two additional surveys of a panel sample surveyed in early 1997 and early 2000.