Search Results (40)

Background: The consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) represents an important public health challenge, especially among education workers, whose intense routine can negatively impact eating habits. This study aimed to analyze the factors associated with the regular consumption of UPF among employees of the Federal Network of Professional, Scientific and Technological Education (RFEPCT) in Brazil. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, with a quantitative approach, carried out with 1563 education workers. Validated instruments on eating habits (PeNSE), mental health (DASS-21) and quality of life (WHOQOL-bref) were used. The regular consumption of UPF was defined as intake on ≥5 days in the last seven days. The association between the regular consumption of UPF and sociodemographic, occupational, behavioral, mental health and quality of life variables was assessed by Poisson regression with robust variance, generating adjusted prevalence ratios (PRadj) and respective 95% confidence intervals. Results: The regular consumption of UPF was associated mainly with female gender, a lower age group, Southeast and Midwest regions, dissatisfaction with sleep and the body, physical inactivity and poor sleep quality. In addition, the findings suggested a significant relationship between the worst stress scores and soft drinks (PRadj: 2.11; CI: 1.43–3.13), anxiety and soft drinks (PRadj: 1.83; CI: 1.24–2.70) and depression and industrialized/ultra-processed salty foods (PRadj: 2.43; CI: 1.82–3.26). The same was observed in the scores for the worst perception of quality of life, where there was a prevalence of up to 2.32 in the psychological domain and the consumption of industrialized/ultra-processed salty foods. Conclusions: The findings indicate that multiple interrelated factors—individual, psychosocial and occupational—are associated with the consumption of UPF among education workers. These results reinforce the importance of institutional policies that integrate actions to promote dietary health, mental health care and improved working conditions in the education sector. Full article

The first few days of the second Trump presidency saw a flurry of executive orders targeting immigrants, the transgender community, blacks, and federal government employees. The resulting “shocks” to the system are unprecedented, causing many to question the continuation of American democracy. These actions are a few of many policy preferences developed by conservatives and captured in “Project 2025”, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and with the overall intent of restructuring the federal government to suit authoritarian aims. Using a theoretical framework regarding policy entrepreneurs (PEs), I argue that conservative PEs (CPEs), under the aegis of the Republican Party and a second Trump term, are encouraging a shift away from a federal democratic republic to an authoritarian regime. CPEs of interest include elected officials, think tanks, media outlets, interest groups, and political operatives; collectively, these entities constitute a network of mostly unnoticed conservative political professionals using the mechanisms of policy entrepreneurship to damage American democracy. Overall, the actions CPEs take in terms of setting the agenda, controlling the electoral process, and informing the media indicate an eventual abandonment of democratic norms, an inclination towards the establishment of an authoritarian regime, and acceptance of said regime by a significant portion of the American people. Full article

The swine production chain can be a reservoir of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli, which transfers resistance genes to other bacteria, serving as an important biomarker in the One Health approach. This study aimed to identify the frequency and antimicrobial resistance profile of E. coli in the swine production chain, assess the presence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL), and compare resistance profiles across different sample types. A total of 622 samples of swine carcasses from various points of the slaughter process (n = 400), swine feces (n = 100), commercial cuts (n = 45), environment (n = 67), and feces from employees (n = 10) of a pig slaughterhouse certified by the Federal Inspection Service, located in São Paulo state, Brazil, were collected. A total of 1260 E. coli isolates were obtained from the samples, with 73.6% of the samples testing positive. The agar disk diffusion test was performed with 10 different classes of antimicrobials. To confirm the production of ESBLs, the isolates were submitted to a double-disk synergism test using cefotaxime, ceftazidime, and amoxicillin with clavulanic acid. Of the total isolates, 80.71% were multidrug resistant. All ESBL-producing isolates were multidrug resistant and resistant to amoxicillin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol. Isolates from human feces samples had less chance of being multidrug resistant than samples from other sources. The diversity of resistance profiles was verified in the samples, not clustering according to the sources, except for human feces isolates that clustered, evidencing lower antimicrobial resistance variability of these samples. Antimicrobial resistance is significantly present in the pork production chain, necessitating a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach to effectively mitigate risks within the One Health framework. Full article

This study aims to identify how the health and well-being of public servants are promoted and managed at the Federal University of Technology—Paraná (UTFPR). The Integrated Subsystem for Attention to the Health of Public Servants (SIASS), established by the federal government in 2009, is an initiative that integrates health actions, work safety, and social assistance. This qualitative study utilized the analysis of institutional documents and semi-structured interviews with managers involved in SIASS implementation at the UTFPR. The analysis reveals that, despite the creation of the SIASS, the UTFPR faces challenges such as resource scarcity, reliance on procurement processes, and a reactive rather than preventive approach to occupational health issues. The structural diversity across campuses and the lack of systematic evaluation of working conditions further limit the effectiveness of policies. It is recommended that the UTFPR adopt a more integrated, data-driven, and proactive approach to occupational health management. Strengthening interinstitutional partnerships, optimizing resource allocation, and developing continuous evaluation systems are essential steps to ensure a work environment that effectively promotes the health and well-being of its employees. Full article

Background: Favorable health benefits of an active lifestyle have been clearly documented within the context of occupational health. However, a knowledge gap exists regarding the monitoring and comparison of micronutrient status across varying levels of physical activity (PA). This study aimed to investigate the association of PA level with micronutrient status and the associated health biomarkers among a cohort of Austrian bank employees. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, this study involved the participation of bank employees (n = 123; average age: 43 years; 49% males) from the federal state of Tyrol, located in the western part of Austria. To assess PA levels and sedentary behavior, the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ; developed by the WHO) was administered. Accordingly, participants were categorized into three groups: low PA, moderate PA, and high PA. Participants’ blood samples were obtained to measure blood levels of micronutrients, homocysteine, and CoQ10. The values of vitamins and minerals in whole-blood were compared to sex-specific reference ranges and grouped into three categories: below, within, or exceeding the reference range. Results: The prevalence of a high PA level was 61%, while 18% of participants had a low PA level. Overweight/obesity was significantly less prevalent among participants with high PA levels (22%) compared to those with moderate (50%) and low (50%) PA levels (p = 0.045). No significant differences between PA levels were found for sex, age, diet type, homocysteine, or CoQ10 markers (p > 0.05). There was no significant PA-based difference in blood concentrations of most vitamins and minerals (p > 0.05), except for vitamin D (p = 0.001) among females, as well as selenium (p = 0.040) and vitamin B12 (p = 0.048) among males. Conclusion: The present findings offer initial insights into the link between PA behaviors, micronutrient status, and health, highlighting potential implications in occupational health and lifestyle, specifically in developing tailored approaches based on PA levels. Full article

Trust in institutions is fundamental for the stability and proper functioning of democracies, particularly in matters of high public sensitivity, such as food safety. This study aimed to assess trust levels in different sources of information and respondents’ evaluation of the performance of government agencies responsible for controlling food-related hazards. Individuals interviewed in three environments (hospitals/clinics, supermarkets, universities, N = 1000) answered a face-to-face questionnaire in the Federal District of Brazil, and another population (health surveillance employees at the municipal, state and federal levels; N = 1017) answered the questionnaire online. About 60% of the population interviewed considered government performance to be low/very low. Scientists/universities, medical doctors (MD)/health professionals, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were judged to be the most reliable sources of information on food hazards, while the food industry, supermarkets and social media inspired the lowest trust. Individuals from the hospitals/clinics group had significantly higher trust in MD/health professionals, media and websites than the two other Federal District groups. In general, income and education were the most predictive factors for the results, being negatively associated with assessment of government performance and trust in most information sources. In the Federal District, there was a negative association between trust levels in the government and worry about pesticides and genetically modified food, but a positive association between trust in NGOs and worry on these hazards. The results point to the need for the implementation of more effective communication strategies by institutions in which the population has low trust levels, such as government and food companies. Full article

Machine and manufacturing migrant workers in the new era are side by side cooperation and interaction of the new labor force form. Based on the dynamic survey of China’s floating population in 2011 and the data collected by the International Federation of Robotics, the Bartik instrument variable method is used to analyze the impact of industrial robots on the employment quality of the floating population in manufacturing industry at the city level. As the city scale expands, industrial robots have an inverted U-shaped effect on the employment quality of manufacturing migrant workers. Industrial robots have a positive U-shaped influence on the number of hours that migrant workers in manufacturing work, with an inflexion point of 1.3721 units per 10,000 workers. The influence of industrial robots on migrant workers’ working conditions in the manufacturing sector was U-shaped, and 1.668 units per 10,000 workers marked the tipping point. Nevertheless, industrial robots have an inverse influence on the occupation stability of migrant workers in the manufacturing industry. Precisely, the installation density of industrial robots in the manufacturing industry has a detrimental impact on the occupational stability of migrant employees. Industrial robots are negatively associated with the working conditions of migrant workers employed in manufacturing. There were detrimental effects on the employment quality of manufacturing migrant workers in cities with higher and lower population densities. In the end, for every manufacturing farmer using an industrial robot, the likelihood of being miserable and almost happy went up by 2.64 percent and 5.59 percent, respectively, while the likelihood of being happy went down by 7.62 percent. Full article

Digital competence plays an important role in higher education. The literature highlights the adoption and use of digital competence for the development of educational services in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), but it is still necessary to understand its influence on the innovative behavior of the public official. This study aims to investigate the influence of digital competence, based on the predictors’ infrastructure, integration, and digital management, on innovative work behaviors. The research was applied to 540 public employees of a Federal Institution of Higher Education (IFES) in northern Brazil. The response rate for this study was 33.5%. The Structural Equation Modeling approach by Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) was used. Empirical findings confirm that public employees with a high level of perception of digital competence more often develop challenging work to generate new innovative behaviors at work. This research was limited to investigating the influence of digital competence on innovative work behaviors of public employees of a Brazilian IFES. Future studies may address other contextual factors in this relationship. One of the practical implications is the need for managers in the education sector to support the construction of guidelines for educational and technological innovation to expand innovative behavior at work. Full article

Organizational justice is known to help promote organizational sustainability. The literature has explained the impact of organizational justice relying heavily on the social exchange perspective, the idea that employees are motivated to show favorable attitudes in return for the fair rewards that organization has provided. To the contrary, little attention has been given to the proposition that it affects employee’s attitudes by increasing their intrinsic motivation. The latter has a greater implication of sustainable management since intrinsic motivation of its employees is the key to the sustained success of an organization. This approach can be called a value-based perspective. To fill that gap, this study examined the mediating effects of both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation links between organizational justice and employee satisfaction. The analysis revealed that the indirect mediating effects of intrinsic motivation were greater than those of extrinsic motivation for procedural and interactional justice, while the mediating effect of extrinsic motivation was greater when it comes to distributive justice. In addition, the sum of the indirect effects of intrinsic motivation was comparable to that of extrinsic motivation. This result implies that the mediating effects of intrinsic motivation are as important as those of extrinsic motivation, confirming our prediction that organizational justice contributes to organizational sustainability via the path that has not been verified so far. Full article

The social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has been described as the “greatest psychological experiment in the world”. It has tested the human capacity to extract meaning from suffering and challenged individuals and society in Brazil and abroad to promote cohesion that cushions the impact of borderline experiences on mental life. In this context, a survey was conducted with teachers, administrative technicians, and outsourced employees at the Federal Institute of Piauí (IFPI). This educational institution offers professional and technological education in Piauí, Brazil. This study proposes a system for the early diagnosis of health quality during social distancing in the years 2020 and 2021, over the COVID-19 pandemic, combining multi-criteria decision support methodology, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with machine learning algorithms (Random Forest, logistic regression, and Naïve Bayes). The hybrid approach of the machine learning algorithm with the AHP multi-criteria decision method with geometric mean accurately obtained a classification that stood out the most in the characteristics’ performance concerning emotions and feelings. In 2020, the situation was reported as the SAME AS BEFORE, in which the hybrid AHP with Geographical Average with the machine learning Random Forest algorithm stands out, highlighting the atypical situation in the quality of life of the interviewees and the timely manner in which they realized that their mental health remained unchanged. After that, in 2021, the situation was reported as WORSE THAN BEFORE, in which the hybrid AHP with geometric mean with the machine learning Random Forest algorithm provided an absolute result. Full article

Despite increasing attention to workplace mistreatment in organizations, few studies have investigated the consequences of such negative experiences on employees. Using the Canadian Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) data (about 80,000 observations), this study examines the relationships between workplace mistreatment and outcomes at work and the moderating role of organizational efforts in preventing and handling workplace mistreatment among Canadian federal government employees. Empirical results of an OLS regression and logit model document that perceived workplace mistreatment, in terms of workplace harassment and discrimination, is negatively related to job satisfaction and continuance organizational commitment and positively related to turnover intention. The analysis also shows that the linkages between workplace mistreatment and the three outcomes were weaker when organizational efforts aimed at dealing with workplace mistreatment were perceived to be high. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed. Full article

This research aims to analyze the determinant factors of the effectiveness and sustainability indicators of higher education management at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The research is characterized as a quantitative study of inferential nature, with structural equation modeling. Data were collected from a survey and applied to professors and employees of two teaching centers at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The theoretical basis is the Baldrige Excellence Model. This research brings together several theoretical and practical implications involving the sustainability of higher education management, because higher education institutions have been under pressure to improve their performance, and many governments have implemented new regulations that seek to professionalize universities in pursuit of excellence. So, this paper discusses one of the models in the academic literature, the Baldrige model, which focuses on the effectiveness of university management, encompassing quality improvement and excellence in management. The results obtained show that the construct leadership, focus on the student, and society, have a direct effect on strategic planning and an indirect effect on the effectiveness of management. In addition, the constructs of transparency and management by competencies have a direct effect on work processes. Universities face a management challenge and demand new quality models. Full article

With high health requirements for FIFO work at industry, workers may experience adverse changes in psychological well-being and health status. This makes it relevant when developing the job performance model to rely on considering not only the effectiveness by employees but also their psychophysiological “cost of activity”, which is not reflected in modern scientific research. This article theoretically substantiates and empirically develops a job performance typology of fly-in-fly-out workers at industrial enterprises by correlating three components: effectiveness, psychophysiological resources, and the way of accomplishing tasks. The study involved 359 fly-in-fly-out workers in oil and gas, diamond mining and construction industries with different duration of the fly-in period, operating in the South and the North of the Russian Federation. The research methods included questioning, psychophysiological instrumental testing, and psychological testing. Statistical processing was carried out using the methods of descriptive statistics, two-stage cluster analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance. As a result of the study, six types of job performance of fly-in-fly-out personnel of industrial enterprises were identified. The employees at industrial enterprises of all six types of job performance correspond to their position and perform the assigned tasks, the difference in them lies in the desire to show an average or the highest possible result, as well as how much internal resources the employee spends to achieve this result and how quickly he restores them, which is expressed in terms of his state and well-being. Based on the results of these connections, measures for personnel management for industrial enterprises were proposed. Full article

The physical environment of healthcare settings can promote both the healing process and patient feelings of well-being, as well as instill positive emotions in employees. The present study aimed to evaluate the dental work environment of a typical private and public dental clinic to identify key parameters that determine the perception of health facilities by patients and employees. The study was carried out from 1 to 20 December 2021, in two dental clinics in Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation) using ‘ASPECT’. The participants were 58 staff and 94 patients. The results showed that, compared with patients, staff reported higher views scores, nature and outdoors scores, and comfort and control scores. The common criterion that distinguishes private clinics from public ones was comfort and control. Compared with patients in state clinics, patients in private clinics reported higher privacy, company and dignity scores, comfort and control scores, interior appearance scores, and facility scores. In general, while views scores and nature parameters can be singled out as a universal absolute value for everyone in a particular environment, staff pay more attention to factors that contribute to long-term comfortable stay and performance of their duties. Full article

Infection prevention interventions can only be effective if they are both well known and easily accessible. A randomized controlled trial showed that a serious game, “Escape COVID-19”, was significantly more effective at improving the intention of adopting adequate infection prevention behavior than regular guidelines among long-term care facility employees. However, less than a fifth of all potential participants were finally recruited in this study. To determine whether a specific communication intervention was more effective than another, we carried out a retrospective analysis of account creation data over a six-month period. During the first period (53 days), information about the serious game was disseminated by a part-time worker. The second period (15 days) corresponded to a press release, while the third period (15 days) reflected an official communication from the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. A total of 3995 accounts were created during the study period. Most accounts were created by health care workers (2699/3995, 67.6%). Median daily account creation was highest during the press release period (25; Q1:Q3 9:172) and lowest during the official communication period (6; Q1:Q3 4:20). The association between communication intervention and account creation was statistically significant both when considering the overall population (p = 0.013) and when only analyzing health care workers (p = 0.036). Full article