Mental Health, Wellness, and Resilience for Transit System Workers (2024) / Chapter Skim
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1 Previous Research
1 Previous Research
Pages 11-30
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From page 11... ...
While the overarching objective of this literature review was to inform the subsequent tasks of the research project (TCRP Project F-29, "Mental Health, Wellness, and Resilience for Transit System Workers") , it also emphasized the following specific objectives: • Investigate transit agency practices to address the mental health, wellness, and resilience of public transit workers worldwide; • Investigate employer practices beyond the public transit sector to address the mental health, wellness, and resilience of workers; • Explore how researchers have examined the relationship between the nature of work and work environment and workers' health and well-being; • Explore and document the effects of COVID-19 on the public transit industry and transit workers; • Explore approaches adopted by researchers within and beyond the public transit sector to identify appropriate methods for outreach to transit agency officials and frontline workers, including interviews, focus groups, surveys, and data analysis methods; and • Identify gaps in available resources to determine appropriate questions for transit agency officials and frontline workers.
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From page 12... ...
• Frontline transit workers experience a range of difficulties in the work environment. In a survey of transit agencies, 81% of operators reported experiencing verbal threats, intimidation, or harass ment; 60% reported spitting; 38% reported projectiles thrown at buses; and 26% reported objects thrown inside buses.
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From page 13... ...
Perpetually Adverse Work Conditions for Transit Workers While COVID-19 added a new layer of adverse working conditions for frontline transit workers, they were already exposed to difficult workplace conditions. Numerous studies have documented these perpetual adverse conditions and their effects on mental health, physical health, and performance, as well as family and personal life.
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From page 14... ...
regulations or state safety plans when preparing driver paddles for runs or trips, bus operators still face serious challenges related to restroom access. Restrooms provided by transit agencies are located mostly in bus terminals and train stations; even when a bus trip begins or ends at such locations, operators often use restrooms in shopping malls, fast-food restaurants, or similar places at the other end of the trip.
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From page 15... ...
Media reports about shootings on NYC buses and subway trains, homicides in subway stations, and so on bear testimony to the frequent exposure to violent events endured by the public and frontline transit workers as well as other frontline workers. Some of the adverse effects experienced by bus operators, such as long work hours, difficult work schedules, and exposure to chemicals and fumes, can also be experienced by workers operating trains and working at train stations.
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From page 16... ...
(2006) mentioned several psychological effects of adverse work conditions for bus opera tors, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and behavioral outcomes such as substance misuse.
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From page 17... ...
Thus, the full impact of work on transportation workers is unknown, and the documented effects are likely underestimated. Other Potential Effects of Adverse Work Conditions In addition to directly impacting workers' mental and physical health, the work environments of transit workers can have certain other effects.
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From page 18... ...
Ways to Address Adverse Work Conditions FTA administers a national transit safety program and compliance oversight process that applies to all transit agencies and workers. The agency offers transit safety and crime prevention oversight and guidance as well as mental health resources, including access to a mental health toolkit from the U.S.
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From page 19... ...
Improving Workplace Environment The reviewed literature covers a variety of methods to improve workplace environments and mitigate transit workers' risk of exposure to adverse conditions. For example, a project to build physical platform barriers between subway trains and waiting passengers in three NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority stations is underway to reduce the probability of exposure of subway operators and other frontline workers to PUT incidents, such as accidents, deaths by suicide, and homicide.
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From page 20... ...
, both the mental and physical health of bus operators can be addressed by constructing new restrooms at layovers and designing bus routes and runs appropriately so that operators have the time and opportunity to use restrooms when needed. Since transit workers' fatigue and stress are often attributed to long work hours and shift work, transit agencies can reconfigure work hours and schedule runs to ensure that the most vulnerable operators have the lowest risk of exposure.
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From page 21... ...
TCRP Report 174 provided several suggestions for improving transit agencies' safety culture. However, perhaps the most important takeaway is the need for transit management to take primary responsibility and collectively work with employee leaders to develop a road map.
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From page 22... ...
In addition to teaching how to prepare for and effectively encounter hostile environments, resilience training programs also teach empathy and healthy relationships, which can make them beneficial not only to frontline transit workers but also to managerial staff who make organiza tional decisions. Typical Health and Wellness–Promoting Practices of Transit Agencies At the time of writing, no comprehensive review of transit agencies' health and wellness pro grams has been published since TCRP Synthesis 52: Transit Operator Health and Wellness Programs, released two decades ago (Davis, 2004)
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From page 23... ...
A review of studies beyond the realm of public transit shows that certain components of health and wellness programs of transit agencies may be beneficial to transit workers generally. For example, in a study involving a meta-analysis of 23 randomized control studies, Bartlett et al.
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In a study involving transit agencies from several countries that was published more than 20 years ago, Kompier et al.
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(This is because bus operators are typically older than other transportation workers, on average, and older workers experienced disproportionately worse health effects from COVID-19.) For example, the SUMC report showed that the median
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From page 26... ...
Results indicated that people who feared COVID-19 were six times more likely to have anxiety or depression symptoms. One of the study's conclusions was that transit agencies can reduce fear of a pandemic by providing an adequate amount of PPE and mak ing procedural changes via signage and limiting passenger numbers, which could have a positive effect on mental health.
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From page 27... ...
These studies seem to indicate that public transit may be more sustainable in areas with larger proportions of low-income and minority populations compared to other areas, at least until the adverse effects of COVID-19 decrease substantially. During the pandemic, transit agencies adopted a number of measures to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on transit riders and workers.
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From page 28... ...
The decrease in bus operators despite the increase in median wages could also demonstrate how wages are not the definitive factor in the decline of frontline transit jobs. Even media reports now show the difficulties faced by transit agencies in hiring bus operators (Perrero, 2022)
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From page 29... ...
If these changes materialize, and service revisions are made because of such changes, they could potentially impact the health and well-being of the future transit workforce. Although COVID-19 made recruiting frontline transit workers more difficult, recruiting and retaining such workers have always been challenging for transit agencies.
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From page 30... ...
One of the primary objectives of this review was to assess how past studies conducted outreach with transit agencies and what analytical methods researchers used in quantitative studies. The review showed that most TCRP studies conducted outreach with transit agencies rather than interacting directly with transit workers, but many other studies involved direct interaction with workers.
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