Center for Work & Health (CWH)

Mission

Established in 2013, the Center for Work and Health at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations aims to bring together researchers within SMLR, across Rutgers and beyond who conduct work on any and all topics related to the intersection of work and health. These topics include:

• Work organization;
• Human resource management and labor relations in healthcare organizations;
• The impact of the aforementioned on organizational performance;
• Workforce development for the health care sector;
• Public policy concerning health insurance and access to healthcare (including health insurance as an employment-based benefit); and
• The impact of work on workers’ physical and mental health.

The Center sponsors seminars and conferences and is involved in outreach to practitioners, especially healthcare employers and labor organizations and policy makers.     

Call for Papers 

"Consequences of Change in Healthcare for Organizations, Workers, and Patients"

This call invites papers for a conference and subsequent special issue of Work & Occupations devoted to the consequences of change in healthcare for organizations, workers, and patients. Accepted papers will be invited to the conference, sponsored by the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, to be held at Rutgers on January 9-11, 2019. 

After the conference, a subset of authors will be asked to submit their papers to Work & Occupations, with the expectation that their papers will be published in a special issue once they pass the external review process. Papers that reviewers deem of good quality that are not selected for the special issue will be considered for publication in a regular issue of Work & Occupations. If you have any questions, please email rutgerscornellhealthcareconference@cornell.edu.

Initiatives

Nurse Unionization Data Tool

• The Nurse Unionization Data Tool allows for exploration of trends in union membership and union contract coverage for registered nurses in the United States. The tool, which operates on data derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS) public use microdata, can be used to generate trend plots and maps showing how these quantities change over time, filtered and/or grouped according to a variety of demographics. The data here provide useful illustrations and information about trends. Users should note that some samples are too small to be truly representative of the larger population.

Conferences

• Designing Collaborative Ecosystems - September 12-15, 2017
  During the Sociotechnical Systems Roundtable Inc. (STS) 2017 Annual Roundtable, "Designing Collaborative Ecosystems," attendees explored the practice of building collaborative ecosystems in the healthcare sector as well as in other fields to broaden the understanding of collaborative ecosystems' general principles and methods. This event was organized in collaboration with Rutgers SMLR's Center for the Study of Collaboration in Work and Society. 
• CAR:NG Conference at Rutgers: Nurses Gathering- December 1, 2016 
  SMLR, Jobs With Justice, and a coalition of labor and community organizations shared workplace best practices with nurses from across the United States.
• Health, Well-Being, and Work Conference - Spring 2013
  SMLR's annual Labor and Management Conference was centered on discussions about the health and well-being status of workers and this relationship to work. Conference speakers addressed several issues negatively affecting workers, many of whom are overworked and overstressed.

Seminars

• We're on Our Own: Economic and Emotional Precarity in Home Care Work - November 15, 2018
  Emily Franzosa, Senior Researcher, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy
• The Care Revolution - October 4, 2018

  Bob Bussel, Director, Labor Education and Research Center, University of Oregon

• Creating the Infrastructure on Nurses' Work: Professional Organizations Role in Developing the Professional Nurse Workforce - October 18, 2016
  Jean Whelan, Ph.D., RN, from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing, described and discussed the role played by professional nurse organizations and other groups in developing the structure and conventions of nurses' work in the early twentieth century. 
  

  
  
  

• Study on Collaborative Relations at Mass General - December 15, 2015
  Professor Charles Heckscher and Hao Gong, Ph.D. student
• "Speaking Out" in Residential Care - March 24, 2015
  Diane Burns, Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield, UK, discussed the mistreatment of vulnerable people while in hospital or living in residential care. She examined the forces that inhibit staff and residents from "speaking out" about poor care.
• Take This Job and Change It with Susan Dentzer - March 14, 2014
  Susan Dentzer, senior health policy adviser for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former on-air health correspondent for the PBS News Hour, was the keynote speaker at the Employment Relations in Healthcare Conference held on March 14-15, 2014. Dentzer spoke about work and employment relations in the U.S. health care system. She stressed the need for better health care at lower costs, nurses who are willing to work in hospitals, and the reduction of premature deaths before age 50.
• Staffing in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Comparison of the United States and Italy - October 7, 2014
  Dr. Jeannette Rogowski, professor of health economics at Rutgers, discussed her examination of staffing and practice environments in a broad sample of NICUs in the U.S. and Italy, based on primary data collection. The implications for patient outcomes for infants with very low birth weights was explored. 

Related Programs

• The Program on Collaborative Health Care Delivery
  This program has conducted research in a set of New Jersey hospitals and has documented improved performance in units with strong cross-disciplinary teams.
• Occupational Training and Education Consortium (OTEC)’s Health Care Project
  OTEC’s research projects and collaborations with health care organizations focus on organizational practices that enhance frontline staff participation in problem solving.

Publications 

View our list of articles.

Contact

Adrienne Eaton
Distinguished Professor and Dean
aeeaton@smlr.rutgers.edu

Rebecca Givan
Associate Professor
rkg47@smlr.rutgers.edu
 

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