Dalla Lana School of Public Health

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Presented by the Centre for Occupational Disease Prevention …

About the event: Joint Seminar on Health and Working from Home

Title: “Is working from home good for mental health?”

It remains unclear whether teleworking is associated with better mental health and well-being among Canadian adults in the post–COVID-19 era. We examined associations between work location and self-rated mental health, life satisfaction, and life and work stress in a nationally representative sample of Canadian workers (n = 24,614). Work location was categorized as: fixed location outside the home (62.9%), outside the home without a fixed location (12.2%), or working from home (24.9%). Those working from home were generally more highly educated and commonly employed in business, finance, administration (30.4%) or natural and applied sciences (22.4%). After adjusting for covariates, work location was not significantly associated with mental health, life satisfaction, or stress. Overall, these findings suggest that mental health and well-being are not necessarily determined by the physical location of work.

Speaker: Jean-Philippe Chaput, PhD

Dr. JP Chaput is a Senior Scientist with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on obesity prevention, health promotion, and lifestyle behaviour modification, including improving sleep, increasing physical activity, reducing screen time, and fostering healthier eating habits. Dr. Chaput has published over 475 peer-reviewed scientific articles, with an h-index of 110 and more than 70,000 citations. He serves on numerous journal editorial boards and advisory committees, has delivered over 250 lectures at international conferences, and has received multiple awards for his research achievements. Outside of work, Dr. Chaput enjoys traveling, running and skiing in the forest, and spending time with his daughter, Charlotte.

Title: “From Home to Office: How Work Location Shapes Activity and Sleep in Canada”

Working from home (i.e., teleworking) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teleworking alters daily schedules including time spent active, sedentary and sleeping. Using cross-sectional data from the 2021 Canadian Community Health Survey (n = 10,913 working adults 18–75 years), we examined the association between work location and movement behaviours (physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep) and adherence to the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines (24-H Guidelines) among workers in Canada. Primary work location was categorized as: fixed location outside the home, worked at home, or outside the home at no fixed location. We found that compared to a fixed workplace, those teleworking reported more recreational physical activity and sleep and were more likely to meet sleep duration recommendations and the 24-H Guidelines. Findings underline the importance of work location in promoting healthy movement behaviours.

Speaker: Stephanie Prince Ware, PhD

Dr. Stephanie Prince Ware is a Senior Research Scientist in the Centre for Surveillance and Applied Research at the Public Health Agency of Canada and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. She also serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Her research focuses on the measurement and determinants of health behaviours—such as physical activity and sedentary behaviour—with an emphasis on national surveillance systems and the influence of built environments. She is particularly interested in evaluating natural experiments to understand how changes in policy and infrastructure shape population health.