Paper by Dr. Alden Lai published in proceedings finds that burnout is not equally felt across the scientific workforce
Job burnout has widespread consequences for health professionals, scientists, and engineers—but some workers, including women and those early in their careers, are more likely to experience them, according to research published in the proceedings of a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) workshop on burnout.
The proceedings follows the October 2024 NASEM workshop on burnout in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM). Alden Lai, assistant professor of health policy and management at the NYU GPH, led a paper about the consequences of burnout that he presented at the workshop and is published in the proceedings.
Job burnout is a type of work-related stress marked by exhaustion and cynicism about work. To better understand the state of burnout across STEMM professions, NASEM commissioned three reports to synthesize the research on the causes of burnout, its consequences, and interventions that work to address it. Lai and his coauthors—Kenneth Z. Wee of NYU, Erin E. Sullivan of Suffolk University, Amber L. Stephenson of Clarkson University, and Mark Linzer of Hennepin Healthcare and University of Minnesota—dug into the consequences of burnout, screening a total of 7,549 articles and reviewing the full-texts of 133 articles about their impact on scientists, engineers, and health professionals.
“Research shows that the consequences of burnout are profound and pervasive—but not equally felt—in science, engineering, and medical professions,” said Lai.
Read the full proceedings from NASEM: Impact of Burnout on the STEMM Workforce: Proceedings of a Workshop.