The Alcohol and Health Outcomes of Work Restructing

这项研究是一个项目的延续和延伸，该项目询问工作场所结构调整过程是否、在何种程度上以及在何种情况下对雇员的饮酒和健康产生不利影响。研究特别提出，在美国制造企业中越来越普遍的“缩小规模”和“重组”是否会加剧员工的压力和不满，从而导致有问题的饮酒行为和健康状况不佳。此外，它还提出了一个问题：在重组的环境中，员工群体中的某些群体（主要是经理和那些有“逃避现实”饮酒倾向的人）是否发现自己特别“面临”酗酒和健康问题的“风险”，以及为什么会出现这种情况。这项研究采用了纵向面板设计，这样就可以更自信地对重组对员工幸福感的影响做出因果陈述，从酗酒、心理健康和身体健康的角度来理解。它建立在调查人员多年来对工作、工作场所组织、饮酒问题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，其员工在个人经历这些变化的程度上表现出很大的差异（因此，在我们的关键研究变量上提供了相当大的差异），其员工具有广泛的人口特征和工作技能（从半熟练的装配工作到航空工程）。这项建议要求提供资金，以支持在1997年初和2000年初对一个小组抽样进行的另外两次调查。

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.