A stable job in a supportive work environment can be an especially vital asset for working mothers who have a socioeconomic disadvantage due to their levels of education, income, or both. In the United States, there are approximately 8 million socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers who may face a daunting combination of stressors such as limited wealth and appropriate job opportunities, precarious employment, and parenting with low resources. Preliminary research suggests that their exposure to stressors is linked with a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, chronic pain, cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbance, and depressed mood. In turn, these symptoms can interfere with the mothers’ functioning both at home and in the workplace. Unfortunately, working mothers under socioeconomic disadvantage often report difficulty finding and maintaining jobs due to multilevel factors such as perceived supervisor discrimination, low wages, and limited public transportation. While employers cannot solve all the challenges that these mothers face, a supportive supervisor and workplace that prioritizes psychosocial safety could counter stressors, reduce symptoms, and improve functioning.

In this study, we are assessing our ability to collect data on mothers’ heart rate variability over 48 hours in their day-to-day environments, including work, home, and sleep. We will also be able to examine associations between the mothers’ heart rate variability, symptoms, functioning in the workplace, and perceived supervisor support. Finally, we are interviewing the mothers to explore their needs and concerns around their work, especially related to their perceptions of supervisor support and psychosocial safety in the workplace.

Study Highlights

Psychosocial Safety and Total Worker Health®

The Generalized Unsafety Theory of Stress, which provides the theoretical foundation for this study, asserts that the default for our biological stress system is continuous activation—even in the absence of direct threats—until specifically inhibited by a neurological sense of safety. If this theory is correct, it is the lack of experiences of safety cues in the environment, rather than repeated stressful encounters, that leads to biological wear-and-tear. This shift suggests that in order to promote Total Worker Health ("TWH"), we need to emphasize psychosocial safety in the workplace rather than simply decreasing exposure to acute workplace stress.

Heart rate variability and psychosocial safety in the workplace

Heart rate variability, or the variation in time between consecutive heart beats, is linked with our experiences of social stress as well as our long-term health outcomes. While heart rate variability has been measured in the workplace, as far are we are aware, our study is the first to investigate heart rate variability as a measure related to psychosocial workplace safety.