News

A new podcast, Is working from home unhealthy? from Better Off at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explores the upsides and downsides of working from home.  SHINE’s Executive Director Eileen McNeely is interviewed by Better Off’s Anna Fisher-Pinkert. Working from home has its perks: Better coffee, easy commute, no fluorescent lighting. But, as any home office worker can tell you, there are also downsides: No more office…

Continue reading “New Podcast – Is working from home unhealthy?”

A new paper in PLOS ONE explores how working from home (WFH) impacts work engagement, performance and job satisfaction.  “Working from home and subsequent work outcomes: Pre-pandemic evidence,” authored by Ying Chen, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Piotr Bialowolski, Richard G. Cowden, Eileen McNeely and Tyler J. VanderWeele looked at longitudinal data collected before the Covid-19 pandemic (July 2018 – July 2019).  The study aimed to examine the associations between…

Continue reading “New Paper – Working from home associated with greater productivity and satisfaction”

A new paper in Social Science & Medicine explores caring climate at work and its impact on work outcomes and employee well-being. “Psychological caring climate at work, mental health well-being, and work-related outcomes: Evidence from a longitudinal study and health insurance data,” authored by Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Richard G. Cowden, Piotr Bialowolski, Ying Chen, Tyler J. VanderWeele and Eileen McNeely, looked at longitudinal evidence on the associations of…

Continue reading “New Paper – Psychological caring climate at work associated with individual work outcomes and employee well-being”

A new paper in Sustainability explores whether the importance assigned to well-being domains may be associated with actual self-reported well-being in these same domains.  “Associations between the Importance of Well-Being Domains and the Subsequent Experience of Well-Being,” authored by Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Piotr Bialowolski, Eileen McNeely, Ying Chen, Richard G. Cowden and Tyler J. VanderWeele, looked at longitudinal data from 1209 employees to examine the associations between the…

Continue reading “New Paper – Associating the importance of well-being with the experience of well-being”

A new paper in Scientific Reports explores suffering and its consequences for health and well-being.  Although suffering is a ubiquitous part of the human experience, the extant empirical literature on suffering is characterized by a disproportionate focus on Western samples and older adults living with physical illness. Such evidence has provided some insight into the antecedents, experiences, and consequences of suffering that are relevant to clinical populations of adults who…

Continue reading “New Paper – Associations of suffering with facets of health and well-being at work”

A new paper in Frontiers in Public Health examines the radiation exposures which accumulate over time for flight crews. Flight attendants (FA) and pilots are consistently exposed to a complex variety of physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial stressors. Physical exposures during flight include cosmic ionizing radiation (CIR), decreased oxygen levels, high noise and vibration levels, radiofrequency radiation, electromagnetic fields, and potentially ultraviolet radiation (UV). Chemical exposures in the aircraft include…

Continue reading “New Paper – On cosmic radiation exposure in flight”

A new paper in BMC Public Health examines demographic differences in flourishing, defined as “complete well-being” and consisting of six domains: emotional health, physical health, purpose, character strengths, social connectedness, and financial security.  Authors Matthew T. Lee, Eileen McNeely, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Karen A. Ryan, Kay D. Mooney, Richard G. Cowden and Tyler J. VanderWeele used a random, cross-sectional sample of 2363 survey respondents drawn from employees of a large, national,…

Continue reading “New Paper – Demographic predictors of complete well-being”

A new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology explores the distinctions between depression and suffering.  Authors Richard G. Cowden, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Eileen McNeely and Tyler J. VanderWeele used a cross-sectional sample of flight attendants (n = 4,652), and tested for further empirical evidence distinguishing depression and suffering. Correlations with 15 indices covering several dimensions of well-being (i.e., physical health, emotional well-being, psychological well-being, character strengths, social well-being, financial/material well-being) indicated…

Continue reading “New Paper – Exploring depression and suffering”

Dorota Węziak-Białowolska of SHINE and Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program was interviewed by the Harvard Gazette about our recent study exploring the role of character in physical and mental health.  The research team – Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Piotr Bialowolski, Ying Chen, Tyler J. VanderWeele and Eileen McNeely – found that acting with high moral character is associated with a lower risk of depression — and may have cardiovascular benefits as…

Continue reading “In the News – Being good for goodness’ sake — and your own”

The Harvard Gazette did a feature story focused on our recent study exploring the role of character in physical and mental health. The research team – Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Piotr Bialowolski, Ying Chen, Tyler J. VanderWeele and Eileen McNeely – found that acting with high moral character is associated with a lower risk of depression — and may have cardiovascular benefits as well. Read the Gazette article here.