Workplace stress is pervasive among public transit workers. The health effects of workplace stress can be lethal.
To illustrate this point, here is a video of a National Geographic documentary called Stress – Portrait of a Killer, which is one of the best documentaries on workplace stress that we have seen. It highlights Stanford University researcher Robert Sapolsky‘s studies of stress in baboon troops and correlatesRobert Sapolsky‘s findings about high levels of stress among the lower levels of baboon hierarchies with the Whitehall study of the effects of stress in the British civil service, which concluded that people in the lower levels of the British civil service suffered far higher stress levels than did people in the upper levels of the civil service hierarchy. This is a video we recommend that all transit drivers take the time to watch.
The Stress – Portrait of a Killer video is particularly interesting because of the correlation between the stress in the lower levels of baboon troops and the stress experienced by lower levels of the British civil service and, by extension, the lower levels of all civil service hierarchies. Consider that transit drivers are at the lower end of the public transit organization hierarchy and apply Robert Sapolsky‘s conclusions on the effects of stress on the lower levels of hierarchies to the low position of transit drivers within the hierarchy of any public transit organization.
Note the conclusions of the Whitehall study of the British civil service (starting at 15:41 minutes into the Stress – Portrait of a Killer video) that people at the lower levels of the civil service hierarchy have greater risk of heart disease and other stress related ailments.
All of this points to stress being pervasive in the transit drivers’ work environment (which anyone who has been a transit driver knows to be true) and illustrates that stress can have a serious detrimental effect on drivers’ health in both the short and long term.
In the near future we will be posting some more information on dealing with stress.
D. River, 2 November 2015