Work in brief

JUSTICE AT WORK AND MENTAL HEALTH

Relational justice embraces various components of perceived fairness within organisations, including fairness of formal decision making and the fair treatment of employees by supervisors. Earlier research has suggested cross-sectional and prospective associations with poor self-rated health and medically certified absence from work. In this issue, Ferrie et al1 explore how relational justice affects psychiatric morbidity.

They report that unfair treatment by workplace supervisors increases the risk of mental ill health, while improvements in justice tend to lower risks. Their findings come from the large and influential Whitehall II cohort study of white-collar British civil servants. Relational justice and other aspects of the work psychosocial environment (job control, demand, social support, effort-reward imbalance) were assessed …