title: An Integrative, Multilevel, and Transdisciplinary Research Approach to Challenges of Work, Family, and Health.
abstract: Recognizing a need for rigorous, experimental research to support the efforts of workplaces and policymakers in improving the health and wellbeing of employees and their families, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formed the Work, Family & Health Network (WFHN). The WFHN is implementing an innovative multisite study with a rigorous experimental design (adaptive randomization, control groups), comprehensive multilevel measures, a novel and theoretically based intervention targeting the psychosocial work environment, and translational activities. This paper describes challenges and benefits of designing a multilevel and transdisciplinary research network that includes an effectiveness study to assess intervention effects on employees, families, and managers; a daily diary study to examine effects on family functioning and daily stress; a process study to understand intervention implementation; and translational research to understand and inform diffusion of innovation. Challenges were both conceptual and logistical, spanning all aspects of study design and implementation. In dealing with these challenges, however, the WFHN developed innovative, transdisciplinary, multi-method approaches to conducting workplace research that will benefit both the research and business communities.
authors.affiliation: RTI International Senior Fellow in health economics and the PI of the Data and Methodological Coordinating Center for the NIH/CDC Work, Family & Health Network (WFHN).
authors.forename: Jeremy W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Bray
authors.affiliation: Associate professor of sociology and director of the Life Course Center at the University of Minnesota. She is co-PI, with Phyllis Moen, of the Minnesota center of the WFHN.
authors.forename: Erin L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.affiliation: Professor of psychology and director of the Portland State University Occupational Health Psychology Program, associate director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, and co-director of the Center for Work-Family Stress, Safety, and Health. She is co-PI, with Ellen Ernst Kossek, of the Portland State University center of the WFHN.
authors.forename: Leslie B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Hammer
authors.affiliation: Professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University. He is co-PI, with Susan McHale, of the Penn State center of the WFHN.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: Senior scientist at Kaiser Permanente where he co-directs the Center for Health Education Dissemination and Implementation Research and the Cancer Communication Research Center. He chairs the WFHN Translational Research Committee.
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Dearing
authors.affiliation: Health scientist administrator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and an extramural staff scientist for the WFHN.
authors.forename: Rosalind B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Assistant professor in the Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine, an associate neuroscientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and director of the WFHN biomarker and actigraphy data coordinating center at BWH.
authors.forename: Orfeu M
authors.initials: OM
authors.lastname: Buxton