Louis

Fazen

,

MD

In my clinical work, I have often noted how my patients frame health in the context of their working lives—efforts to control diabetes are mitigated by erratic work schedules; repetitive strain injuries are exacerbated in the setting of job insecurity; and medical treatments are deferred in response to employer-sponsored health insurance deductibles. In these narratives, work is too often described as a constraint on health.

I have long been interested in such structural barriers to health as well as a community’s ability to redress them through collaboration and collective action. My PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health focused on empowering Community Health Workers—community members who had limited education but were intimately familiar with the surrounding social and environmental context—to educate their community and collectively overcome barriers in access to health care. In fellowship, I observed how occupational hazards and injuries tended to accrue in workplaces with rigid hierarchies, poor communication, and insufficient worker autonomy. Stemming from my PhD research and my clinical observations, I became interested in how more collaborative work environments and flatter organizational structures could potentially prevent occupational illness and promote worker health. In healthy work design, I see a tremendous opportunity to reorganize work for the benefit of workers—to foster their autonomy, to increase their agency, and ultimately, to enable workers to achieve better health outcomes.