Summary
Employers are feeling pressured by legislation and litigation on retirement and age discrimination to develop better ways of assessing the health and well-being of their aging work forces. After reviewing legal trends giving rise to this concern for health assessment, this chapter reviews the health status of the older population and examines current trends in work-related assessments of health and performance. Although to date used almost exclusively as screening devices in occupations that can tolerate no disabling conditions (e.g., airline pilots, police officers, fire fighters), assessment technology can be used more broadly to develop a better fit between the physical and mental capacities of older workers and their job duties. Personnel policies that illustrate ways to accommodate the health conditions and special needs of older workers (e.g., flexible scheduling, down-bidding) are suggested for more extensive application in the future.
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McConnell, S.R. (1985). Trends in Assessing and Accommodating the Health of Older Workers. In: Gaitz, C.M., Niederehe, G., Wilson, N.L. (eds) Aging 2000: Our Health Care Destiny. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5062-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5062-3_8
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