Publications

Article

Workplace Stressors & Health Outcomes: Health Policy for the Workplace

By: Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Stefanos A. Zenios

Extensive research focuses on the causes of workplace-induced stress. However, policy efforts to tackle the ever-increasing health costs and poor health outcomes in the United States have largely ignored the health effects of psychosocial workplace stressors such as... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Mortality; Stress; Meta-analysis; Health

25 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?

Informing consumers and restricting bad apples: that’s the dual role that occupational licensing is supposed to play. If a plumber, painting contractor, or HVAC repairer has a license it should matter to consumers wanting their services,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service

Article

A Career Life-Cycle Perspective on Women's Health and Safety

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Chizoba L. Chukwura, Gregory H. Gorman, Vivian S. Lee, Chester B. Good, Kathleen L. Martin, Gregory A. Ator and Michael D. Parkinson

Women's health has demanded more attention from employers as women integrated into the workforce. Traditionally male-dominant fields and occupations require special attention to workplace design, physical standards for entry, employment practices, equipment, and health... View Details

Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare Access; Workplace Design; Military Health System; Occupational Health; Medical Equipment ＆ Devices; Employees; Gender; Personal Development and Career

Article

The Relationship Between Workplace Stressors and Mortality and Health Costs in the United States

By: Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Stefanos A. Zenios

Even though epidemiological evidence links specific workplace stressors to health outcomes, the aggregate contribution of these factors to overall mortality and health spending in the United States is not known. In this paper, we build a model to estimate the excess... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Health Costs; Mortality; Applied Optimization; Health

Find at Harvard

February 2025
Supplement

Intenseye: Powering Workplace Health and Safety with AI (B)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Shane Greenstein and Sadika El Hariri

Intenseye used its $25 million series A funds to refine and expand its digital safety platform while refining its target markets and ideal customer profile. As the company implemented new approaches to create value for its clients, such as developing an AI-powered... View Details

October 2017 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Improving Worker Safety in the Era of Machine Learning (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Dan Levy, Jose Ramon Morales Arilla and Matthew S. Johnson

Managers make predictions all the time: How fast will my markets grow? How much inventory do I need? How intensively should I monitor my suppliers? Which potential customers will be most responsive to a particular marketing campaign? Which job candidates should I... View Details

Keywords: Machine Learning; Policy Implementation; Empirical Research; Inspection; Occupational Safety; Occupational Health; Regulation; Analysis; Forecasting and Prediction; Policy; Operations; Supply Chain Management; Safety; Manufacturing Industry; Construction Industry; United States

Educators

April 8, 2025
Article

Creating Workplaces Free of Forever Chemicals

By: Joseph G. Allen, Heather A. Henrikson and Michael W. Toffel

Forever chemicals are toxic and widely used in buildings and yet they remain on the rise globally with little regulation to control them. In the United States, for example, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations currently cover only forever chemicals in... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Safety Regulations; Regulation; Working Conditions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Safety; Health

Article

Exposure to Harmful Workplace Practices Could Account for Inequality in Life Spans Across Different Demographic Groups

By: Joel Goh, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Stefanos A. Zenios

The existence of important socioeconomic disparities in health and mortality is a well-established fact. Many pathways have been adduced to explain inequality in life spans. In this article we examine one factor that has been somewhat neglected: people with different... View Details

Keywords: Occupational Health; Inequality; Life Expectancy; Socioeconomic Issues; Health

Find at Harvard

13 Jul 2009
Research & Ideas

Diagnosing the Public Health Care Alternative

As health insurance reform is hotly debated in Washington, DC, what strategies should be central for the benefit of patients' health? HBS faculty with expertise in business administration, economic development, and operations strategy... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Health

04 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Is Health Care Making You Better—or Dead?

Regina Herzlinger is not afraid to call them as she sees them. And what she sees looking at the American health care industry is a bunch of killers. Not only are hospitals, insurers, employers, Congress, and academics killing View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Health

May 18, 2012
Article

Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss

By: David I Levine, Michael W. Toffel and Matthew S. Johnson

Controversy surrounds occupational health and safety regulators, with some observers claiming that workplace regulations damage firms' competitiveness and destroy jobs and others arguing that they make workplaces safer at little cost to employers and employees. We... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Occupational Safety; Evaluation; Regression; Matching; Difference In Differences; Safety; Health; Working Conditions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competitive Advantage; Performance; Manufacturing Industry; California

Web

Health Care - Faculty & Research

asbestos in years past. At Harvard University and several corporations, leaders are following a simple, two-part playbook: Demand transparency from suppliers and avoid entire classes of chemicals. Keywords: Occupational View Details

01 Feb 1997
News

Herzlinger on Health Care: Revolution in Evolution

already have lower occupancy due to advances in technology. Then where does the misconception arise that expensive technology - such as MRIs and CAT scanners - is pushing up the cost of health care?... View Details

Article

Healthy Buildings in 2070

By: John D. Macomber and Joseph G. Allen

Fifty years seems a very long time in the future for most industries. Not so in buildings and real estate; built structures routinely last decades if not hundreds of years, as long as they are economically competitive. Any discussion of the 50-year future has to... View Details

Keywords: Health ＆ Wellness; Real Estate; Architectural Innovation; Public Health; Health; Buildings and Facilities; Well-being

2021
Working Paper

Status and Mortality: Is There a Whitehall Effect in the United States?

By: Tom Nicholas

Do white collar workers with lower social status in the occupational hierarchy die younger? The influential Whitehall studies of British civil servants identified a strong inverse relationship between employment rank and mortality, but we do not know if this effect... View Details

Keywords: Mortality; Status; Socioeconomic Determinants Of Health

October 2016
Case

Addicaid: Scaling a Digital Platform for Addiction Wellness and Recovery

By: Robert S. Huckman and Sarah Mehta

In 2013, Sam Frons founded Addicaid—a mobile application (app) that allowed people in addiction recovery to track their progress, check in with counselors, and connect with others in recovery programs. The app was grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy and used the... View Details

Keywords: Digital Health Interventions; Substance Use Disorder; Addiction Treatment; Addiction Recovery; Scale; Innovation; Health; Health Disorders; Health Industry; New York (city, NY)

Educators

February 26, 2024
Article

Making Workplaces Safer Through Machine Learning

By: Matthew S. Johnson, David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Machine learning algorithms can dramatically improve regulatory effectiveness. This short article describes the authors' scholarly work that shows how the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could have reduced nearly twice as many occupational... View Details

Keywords: Government Experimentation; Auditing; Inspection; Evaluation; Process Improvement; Government Administration; AI and Machine Learning; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms