Speakers
Dr Shimaa Elkomy, University of Surrey
Abstract
Exhaustion is framed as an encompassing and sustainable sense of fatigue. While, tiredness is deemed as temporary, exhaustion could persist for long time because of work conditions, and certain lifestyles, and could be endured even with attempts for adequate rest.
There are plethora of studies from epidemiology that have discussed the relationship between the state of extreme tiredness and impaired health, confined cognitive functions and increased mortality.
Using Opinions and Lifestyle Survey: Covid-19 module, the study examines the effect of mental health (PE_Mental Health) and work difficulties (PE_Work) during the pandemic on satisfaction, worthwhileness, happiness, and anxiety for a sample of healthcare workers as opposed by the rest of the population in a survey of 110,000 respondents for 44 waves from April 2020 up until March 2021.
Our analysis adopts four measures of work-related burnout from the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory including lack of energy (WRB_Energy), sleep (WRB_Sleep), rest (WRB_Rest) and exercise (WRB_Excercise). We show that healthcare workers’ wellbeing has been affected more than any population group by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lack of energy and sleep have the largest adverse effects on wellbeing. For those reporting worse-off mental health, exercise has the most pronounced effects.
Biography
Dr Shimaa Elkomy is an applied economist with more than 10 years of experience working with national surveys and administrative datasets. As a quantitative researcher at the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity, she has highly diversified research portfolio that empirically examine various timely and pressing policy challenges. She has a particular interest in applying economic analysis in wide array of policy domains as economic productivity, sustainability, wellbeing, policy outcomes and economic performance. Dr Elkomy is currently a senior research fellow at the University of Surrey leading on a project sponsored by What Works Centre for Wellbeing and commissioned by HMT and Department of Levelling-up, Housing and Communities to examine the effect different economic, social, spatial and regional indicators on wellbeing across England, Scotland and Wales using English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Shimaa is an accredited Office for National Statistics researcher and leads more than one projects using confidential data under the Secured Research System for example Opinions and Lifestyle Survey and Homelessness Case Level Collection (H-CLIC). Shimaa’s current work builds on the foundations of her PhD at the School of Economics at Lancaster University and on a range of projects she led in the School of Economics at the University of Surrey, School of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Strathclyde, and finally What Works Centre for Wellbeing.
