Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #104965

Carol M. Devine, PhD, RD¹, Margaret Jastran, RD¹, Tracy Farrell, MS¹, Jennifer Jabs, MS, RD¹, Carol A. Bisogni, PhD¹, and Elaine Wethington, PhD². (1) Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401, (607) 255-2633, cmd10@cornell.edu, (2) Human Development, Cornell University, MVR Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853

Increasing family work hours, widespread work/family strain, and work schedule inflexibility, combined with a decline in family meals prepared or eaten at home and the poor nutritional quality of meals prepared outside the home make work-family spillover (impact of one role on another) an emerging problem with important implications for health promotion, especially among low- and moderate-income parents. The objective of this grounded theory study was to understand how low- and moderate-income employed parents experienced and integrated family and work roles and how spillover between the two roles affected food choice strategies. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 62 employed mothers and fathers, recruited through community agencies, newspaper ads, worksites, and snowball techniques in a metropolitan area in the Northeast. Participants included black, Latino, and white parents employed in service, clerical, production, and sales jobs. Experienced interviewers conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews that assessed characteristics of family and work roles, social networks, work-family strain and strategies for managing food choices. The audio-taped interviews were transcribed verbatim and reviewed for accuracy. Participants provided informed consent. Data from interview transcripts and field notes were included in continuous data analysis based on the constant comparative method. Spillover between work and family led to adaptive strategies to reduce the negative effects of spillover, among them food choice strategies including speeding up, multi-tasking, simplifying, trading off and compensation. These emergent understandings of work-family spillover and food choices will form the basis for new quantitative measures of work-family spillover and food choices. Funded by NCI grant #CA102684.

Learning Objectives:

• Session participants will be able to define work-family spillover, give examples of both positive and negative spillover from work and family, and food choice strategies used to cope with spillover.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.