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Methods: A latent class growth analysis of health-related productivity loss was estimated on 12 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) (N= 5699), an ongoing nationally representative longitudinal survey of Americans. Waves 1-5 were collected annually at ages 25-29 years. Waves 6-12 were collected biennially at ages 30-44 years. Productivity loss was measured as "health fully preventing a person from working" or "health limiting the amount or kind of work a person could do." Differences among trajectories were assessed using analyses of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests.

Results: A five-group trajectory model for productivity loss was identified: (i) no risk, (ii) low risk, (iii) high risk, (iv) increasing risk at early ages, and (v) increasing risk at later ages. At the first wave, after the waves used for the trajectory model in which respondents were approximately age 45 years, the no-and low-risk groups worked the most weeks and hours per week and had the highest percentages of participants employed ≥10 weeks compared to the high-risk and early-/late-onset increasing-risk groups, all of which had the lowest levels of mastery, self-esteem, education, and socioeconomic status.

Conclusions: There are several developmental patterns of productivity loss, with some trajectories being associated with lower work participation in midlife. These high risk patterns may be indicative of individuals needing intervention to prevent premature work withdrawal.

METHODS: Multivariate analyses were conducted using data from 13 years (1987 to 2000) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) encompassing 110 236 job records and over 82 000 person-years of work experience. Cox proportional hazard regression techniques were used to derive hazard ratios comparing the relative risk of suffering a work-related injury among people working night, evening, rotating, split, and irregular shifts to the risks for those working conventional day shifts, after adjustment for age, gender, occupation, industry, and region. Incidence rates were normalized using a common denominator of 100 person-years of "at-risk time" to obtain valid comparisons.

RESULTS: All of the nonstandard shift schedules, except split shifts, were found to have a higher risk for occupational injuries and illnesses than conventional day shifts. After control for the selected covariates, the calculated hazard ratios were 1.43 for evening shifts [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.26-1.62], 1.36 for rotating shifts (95% CI 1.17-1.58), 1.30 for night shifts (95% CI 1.12-1.52), 1.15 for irregular shifts (1.03-1.30), and 1.06 for split shifts (0.71-1.58).

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that nonstandard shifts are not more risky merely because of the concentration of hazardous jobs in those types of schedules or because of underlying differences in the characteristics of employees working nonstandard shifts. The results point to the need to extend targeted injury prevention programs not only to people working night shifts, but also to those who work evenings.

Methods: We used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1988-2016) and the Occupational Information Network database to create a longitudinal precarious employment score (PES) among 7568 employed individuals over 18 waves (N=101 290 observations). We identified 13 survey indicators to operationalize 7 dimensions of precarious employment, which we included in our PES (range: 0-7, with 7 indicating the most precarious): material rewards, working-time arrangements, stability, workers' rights, collective organization, interpersonal relations, and training. Using generalized estimating equations, we estimated the mean PES and change over time in the PES overall and by race/ethnicity, gender, education, income, and region.

Results: On average, the PES was 3.17 [standard deviation (SD) 1.19], and was higher among women (3.34, SD 1.20), people of color (Hispanics: 3.24, SD 1.23; non-Hispanic Blacks: 3.31, SD 1.23), those with less education (primary: 3.99, SD 1.07; high school: 3.43, SD 1.19), and with lower-incomes (3.84, SD 1.08), and those residing in the South (3.23, SD 1.17). From 1988 to 2016, the PES increased by 9% on average [0.29 points; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.26-0.31]. While precarious employment increased over time across all subgroups, the increase was largest among males (0.35 points; 95% CI 0.33–0.39), higher-income (0.39 points; 95% CI 0.36-0.42) and college-educated (0.37 points; 95% CI 0.33-0.41) individuals.