title: Developing effective professional bus driver health programs: an investigation of self-rated health.
abstract: The health of professional bus drivers is a critical factor in their driving performance; any impairment may lead to undesired consequences. In an attempt to develop and prioritize health and wellness programs, this study investigates the factors significantly affecting the health conditions of professional bus drivers, as well as the strength of these factors. This study uses self-rated health as the examination measurement. This simple assessment is an inclusive measure of health status for judging health trajectory, and is highly associated with changes in functional ability, including perceived control over driving. This study evaluates driver responses of self-rated health with ordered response models that consider factors such as the driver reported health problems, physical and psychological conditions, demographic factors, driving experience, and working environment. Analysis of a sample of 785 drivers shows that age, body mass index, depression, daily working hours, perceived company safety culture, and health problems are the factors significantly affecting self-rated health. Depression has the greatest effect among all factors except health problems. Unlike the linear relationships for the other factors, the relationships between depression levels and perceived health are S-shaped. The results of ordered response models suggest that these influential factors have distinct effects on the self-rated health of individual drivers and on the different levels of self-rated health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Logistics and Shipping Management, Kainan University, No.1 Kainan Road, Luzhu Shiang, Taoyuan 33857, Taiwan. Electronic address: yishih.chung@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yi-Shih
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Institute of Traffic and Transportation, National Chiao Tung University, 4F, 118 Chung Hsiao W. Rd., Sec. 1, Taipei 10044, Taiwan. Electronic address: jtwong@mail.nctu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Jinn-Tsai
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016272:Occupational Health; D015279:Organizational Culture; D016730:Program Development