Work characteristics, alcohol use disorders, and occupational injury

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal intends to examine the role that structural and psychosocial characteristics of work, and their interaction with other socioeconomic factors, play in the development of heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders, examined longitudinally. In addition, the contribution of alcohol-use characteristics to occupational accidents and injuries will be examined, and whether these patterns might be modified by structural characteristics of occupation in addition to other socioeconomic factors. This study will integrate the extensive data on work, education, socioeconomic variables, and occupational injury available in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 with occupational measures from the O*NET that describe the substantive complexity of work, whether work engages with people or things, and occupational physical demands. The principal aims are to: 1) evaluate the effects of occupational characteristics (substantive complexity of work, work with people versus things, and physical demands) on the risk of heavy drinking and alcohol-use disorders; assessing direct effects of work characteristics on subsequent alcohol-use outcomes; mediation of education-related gradients in drinking disorders; and reciprocal effects of heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders on the occupational trajectories of subjects; 2) examine racial and ethnic differences in incidence and prevalence of alcohol consumption and alcohol-use disorders, and assess the contribution of occupational characteristics, with particular attention to differentials between educational attainment and the substantive complexity of work in Black and Hispanic individuals; and 3) Evaluate the long-term risk of occupational injuries in association with the course and temporal patterns of alcohol use, using longitudinal measures of alcohol intake and AUDs and assessing incidence, lost time, and associated costs. The application of latent growth trajectory and structural equation modeling to the evaluation of work characteristics and career trajectories, and their relation to alcohol use will not only provide better longitudinal and life-course assessment of their interrelationship, but also allows for the modeling of reciprocal or reversed relationships. This approach can have major significance in focusing attention toward ongoing or longitudinal attributes of working life and the pathways from education to work that contribute to, or result in, patterns of heavy or problem drinking or alcohol dependence, career trajectories, and the risk of accident and injury at work. It may contribute to the development of a life-course model that incorporates occupational trajectories as a component factor in the assessment of health outcomes.