A substantial body of research has demonstrated the links between psychosocial working conditions—or job stressors—and worker health over the last three decades. Karasek and Theorell’s demand-control model has been particularly influential [
10]. This model hypothesises that high job strain, defined by a combination of low control over how the job is done in the face of high job demands, will be harmful to health. This was first demonstrated in relation to cardiovascular disease outcomes [
10,
11]. Subsequent studies have found that job strain also predicts elevated risks of common mental disorders, even after accounting for other known risk factors [
12‐
14]. While there is a considerable body of evidence supporting a dominant 'normal causation' model regarding the impact of working conditions on employee mental health, it should be noted that reversed causality, that is the impact of mental health on the assessment of working conditions can also occur. There is some evidence that working conditions and mental health influence each other reciprocally and longitudinally [
15]. Systems thinking suggests bi-directional non-linear relationships [
16] and better understanding of these processes using advanced analytic techniques (e.g., marginal structural modelling) and stronger study designs will undoubtedly be the subject of continuing research.
Numerous other job stressors, either individually or in combination, have been shown to influence mental health [
14,
17,
18]. These include job insecurity, bullying or psychological harassment, low social support at work, organisational injustice, and effort-reward imbalance [
12,
14]. Unlike many historically prominent occupational exposures (e.g., asbestos), to which only a small proportion of the working population were exposed,
all working people can be potentially exposed to job stressors. This means that even small increases in risk from such exposures can translate to substantial—and preventable—illness burdens. Given the population prevalence of a given exposure and the associated increase in risk for a specific outcome, the proportion of that outcome attributable to the exposure of interest can be estimated [
19]. Based on job strain prevalence estimates of 18.6% in males and 25.5% in females and an odds ratio of 1.82 for job strain and depression [
12], this method yielded estimates of job strain-attributable risk for depression in an Australian working population sample as 13% of prevalent depression among working males and 17% among working women [
20]. More recently, comparable estimates were obtained from a study of the French working population for job strain-attributable risk for common mental disorders: 10.2–31.1% for men, 5.3–33.6% for women. Using a different approach, a New Zealand birth cohort study estimated that, at age 32, 45% of incident cases of depression and anxiety in previously healthy young workers were attributable to job stress [
21]. While further research is needed to firmly establish the causality and magnitude of association of job strain and other stressor exposures in relation to common mental health problems (which would suggest that the attributable risks just presented are over-estimates), such single-exposure single-outcome estimates may also underestimate the proportion of mental health disorders attributable to job stressors, as a comprehensive estimate would account for all relevant job stressors and the full range of associated mental health outcomes [
7]. In addition to depression, exposure to various job stressors has been associated with burnout, anxiety disorders, alcohol dependence, suicide and other mental health outcomes [
14,
22]. As such, preventing or reducing exposure to job stressors and improving the psychosocial quality of work could prevent a substantial proportion of common mental health problems. Such improvements would benefit other health domains as well, as exposure to these same job stressors also predicts elevated risks for poor health behaviours as well as other high burden chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease [
23,
24].