In this brand new episode of #ProveItPod, Dr. Matt Law talks to Dr. Mani Berenji about mental health in the workplace, the research behind addressing mental health, the resources available to employers, and important discussions about messaging and the purpose of Total Worker Health®

Listen now at www.proveitpod.com or wherever you get your podcasts!

About Dr. Berenji:

Dr. Berenji is a double board certified physician specializing in Occupational and Environmental Medicine as well as Preventive Medicine. She is currently Chief of Occupational Health at VA Long Beach Healthcare System. She also leads the Environmental Health Clinic at VA Long Beach Healthcare System, conducting exposure assessments for veterans (including Agent Orange, Gulf War, and Open Burn Pit registry exams). She is Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at UC Irvine School of Medicine as well as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Wen School of Public Health. She is Lead of Academic and Community Partnerships with the University of California Center for Climate, Health and Equity, where she is spearheading efforts to enhance academic and industry partnerships; evaluating new methodologies to enhance emergency preparedness surrounding climate-related events; working with community leaders on identifying practical climate solutions; and developing climate curricula for medical students and residents. She is currently pursuing board eligibility in Clinical Informatics through the American Board of Preventive Medicine’s Practice Pathway. She is Chair of the Health Informatics as well as the Environmental Health section of ACOEM and continues to lead the ACOEM Presidential Task Force on Digital Transformation through a Planetary Health Lens. She is also a certified medico- legal evaluator and qualified medical examiner in the state of California.

Episode Resources:

Mental Health at Work - World Health Organization

Workplace Mental Health - American Psychiatric Association

One Mind at Work

Mental Health at Work Index

Five Essentials for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being - Office of the Surgeon General

5 Strategies for Improving Mental Health at Work - Harvard Business Review

Mental Health in the Workplace - Washington State Department of Labor & Industries

In this new #StudyFinds episode of #ProveItPod, Dr. Matt Law has a meltdown over the dirty C-word and proceeds to burn all the bridges with malice and forethought. He didn't even hit the alarm. Grab your fire extinguisher, and listen now!

Episode Resources:

Study explores complacency during workplace fire evacuations. (2025). Professional Safety, 70(1), 13.

Accessible at www.assp.org with a valid membership.

Occupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations

Gold, D., Thomas, D., Vincer, N., & Pitkin, M. (2024). Occupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1134–15. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03665-3

In this new #StudyFinds episode of #ProveItPod, Dr. Matt Law has a short but sill unreasonable tangent about research dissemination followed by an investigation into a real workplace hazard. Like seriously. It's actually about #safety this time. And #health. Are you sitting down? Might actually be time to stop that.

Episode Resources:

Study asks: How much sedentary time is too much?

Accelerometer-Measured Sedentary Behavior and Risk of Future Cardiovascular Disease

Ajufo, E., Kany, S., Rämö, J. T., Churchill, T. W., Guseh, J. S., Aragam, K. G., Ellinor, P. T., & Khurshid, S. (2024). Accelerometer-measured sedentary behavior and risk of future cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2024.10.065

In this new "Study Finds" episode, Dr. Matt Law looks behind the headlines once again to figure out if late eaters are doomed in life. Will eating after 5pm kill you? Listen to find out!

Episode Resources:

Concerning study finds 'serious consequences for health' for people who eat after 5pm - Daily Mail

Eating After 5 PM Could Be Damaging Your Metabolic and Heart Health - SciTechDaily

Late eating is associated with poor glucose tolerance, independent of body weight, fat mass, energy intake and diet composition in prediabetes or early onset type 2 diabetes - Nutrition & Diabetes

TREAT to Improve Cardiometabolic Health (NY-TREAT) - ClinicalTrials.gov

Díaz-Rizzolo, D.A., Santos Baez, L.S., Popp, C.J., Borhan, R., Sordi-Guth, A., Manoogian, E.N.C., Panda, S., Cheng, B., & Laferrère, B. Late eating is associated with poor glucose tolerance, independent of body weight, fat mass, energy intake and diet composition in prediabetes or early onset type 2 diabetes. Nutr. Diabetes 14, 90 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41387-024-00347-6

In this new "Study Finds" Episode, Dr. Matt Law digs into the truth behind the headlines claiming that maple syrup can prevent heart disease. Is it true? You'll have to listen to find out.

Episode Resources:

Morning Ag Clips - Why Substitute Sugar With Maple Syrup?

Study Abstract

Morissette, A., Agrinier, A.-L., Gignac, T., Ramadan, L., Diop, K., Marois, J., Varin, T. V., Pilon, G., Simard, S., Larose, É., Gagnon, C., Arsenault, B. J., Després, J.-P., Carreau, A.-M., Vohl, M.-C., & Marette, A. (2024). Substituting Refined Sugars With Maple Syrup Decreases Key Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in Individuals With Mild Metabolic Alterations: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Crossover Trial. The Journal of Nutrition, 154(10), 2963–2975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.08.014

On today's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Todd Loushine, Ph.D., P.E., CSP, CIH to talk about research, the difference between master's degrees and doctoral programs, correlation vs. causation, and how to read and interpret the good, the bad, and the ugly in research.

Dr. Loushine is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, specializing in everything from basic OSHA compliance to advanced data analysis techniques and research methods in EHS. Last year, Professor Loushine put his over 30 years of experience “to the test” by working part-time as a safety manager for Research Products Corporation in Madison Wisconsin. Todd’s career began with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a fortuitus career initiation as a compliance officer with Minnesota-OSHA. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with special emphasis on psychology and sociology. Professor Loushine has dedicated his life to educating and assisting others on how to systematically evaluate work, and manage organizations to improve safety, productivity, and job satisfaction. Todd’s approach to safety is systems-based and data-driven, which defines safety as an attribute of work and utilizes a quality management approach. He strives to learn from workers (and students) to understand it from their perspective to be a better instructor while optimizing the design and function of the work processes and relationships.

Glossary of Terms:

Variable

     A variable is an observable characteristic. In research, a variable needs to be measured in some way. There are all sorts of different types of variables in research, but today we are just focused on two types of variables. The first is independent. The independent variable is the variable that changes, and in research we try to measure whether changing the independent variable influences the dependent variable. For example, if we want to find out the relationship between watering an apple tree and the number of apples it produces, the amount of water is the independent variable, and the number of apples produced is the dependent variable.

Treatment

     Treatment, in simple terms, is another way to refer to the independent variable and the changes made to the independent variable in the research. In the same example I just gave, the treatment is changing the amount of water given to the apple tree.

Correlation

     This is a measurement of the relationship between two variables, and in research it is a statistical calculation. Keeping with the same example, if I observe that more water given to the tree results in more apples, I have observed a correlation. In fact, this would be a positive correlation, because more water means more apples. A negative correlation would be if more water meant less apples.

Causation

     Causation is different from correlation in that we are able to prove, statistically, that the independent variable, and nothing else, has a direct effect on the dependent variable. If we go back to the apple tree, causation would mean that we have observed the watering of enough apple trees to determine almost exactly how much more water I needed to get a certain amount of apples. However, it’s not causation until we have also determined that nothing else is affecting apple growth, so we would also have to measure and either rule out or control the potential effects of soil health, sunlight, the age of the tree, the amount of wildlife and insects that interact with the tree, the proximity of the tree to other trees and what types of trees those are… You get the idea, right? By the way, all those other variables like soil and sunlight would be confounding variables that affect the validity and reliability of my study.

Validity and Reliability

     Validity is the extent to which a study accurately measures something. Reliability means we are able to get the same result over and over again. These are extremely important parts of research, and yes, there are several statistical tests that let us calculate validity and reliability.

Type 1/Type 2 error

     Type 1 error is a false-positive, meaning that our study reflected that more water means more apples, but in reality this is not true. Type 2 error is a false-negative, which would mean that our study showed that more water did not give us more apples, but in reality more water does give us more apples.

I’m Dr. Matt Law, and I'm the host of "Prove It To Me". This podcast aims to put theories to the test and bring good research to light by showcasing evidence-based solutions. Guests will be challenged to identify things that actually work, provide research and data to back up their claims, and tell us how to measure and manage real solutions.