What employers can do about parental stress

Protect employees from chronic stress

Burnout doesn’t just affect employees’ health. It also increases turnover, reduces productivity, and leads to illness. What kinds of changes can employers make to reduce burnout in the workplace? This white paper encourages employers to modify their cultures to reduce burnout, including offering clear feedback and support, creating more flexible workplaces, and reducing unreasonable workloads.

Stress can be contagious—and scientists want to learn more about it

Researchers have shown that being around someone who is stressed can trigger a stress response in your body, such as elevated cortisol levels and elevated heart rate. One way this was recently studied was by having people watch stressful activities, like a recorded job interview or solving challenging math problems, and then sampling hormones in observers' spit.

Women more likely than men to report strain of being a caregiver

A Pew Research Center caregiver analysis from 2026 indicates that, though men and women both say caring for aging parents improved their relationships with their parents, women are more likely than men to report that it had a negative impact on their emotional well-being and physical health.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Just a 10-minute mental health break can yield benefits

The US CDC offers recommendations for alleviating stress in daily life. Short 10-minute breaks can significantly improve mental health, especially when used for activities like deep breathing, dancing, or writing down things you are grateful for. Building meaningful relationships, termed "social connectedness," can also alleviate stress and promote resilience.

Managing an employee with a terminal illness

Managing an employee with a terminal illness might be a reality at some point, requiring a balance of compassion and strategic action. This article provides tips for best practices on managing the situation, such as adapting the work environment to the employee's needs (think: giving them flexible hours or the option to work remotely), involving them in decisions about any adjustments to their role, and more. Find out other things to consider here.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Watch a Yale University psychologist explain his new supportive parenting anxiety therapy

Dr. Eli Leibowitz says that accommodating a child's fears and anxieties—say, sleeping on the floor next to them or submitting to their requests to repeatedly come tell them goodnight—can further their anxiety. Instead, parents should change how they approach fear to equip children to think they don't need parental rescue.

American Psychological Association issues recommendations for teen social media use

Listen to this three-minute podcast to learn more about the American Psychological Association's recommendations for teenagers' use of social media. The first report of its kind, it advises parents to closely monitor teens' social feeds during early adolescence, continually screen for signs of problematic use (such as sleep interference), minimize the amount of dangerous content their child is exposed to (such as disordered eating), and limit their teen's use of social media around appearance-related content.

Touch helps newborns regulate stress, gain weight, and feel less pain

Conclusions from this 2024 analysis from a team of Danish researchers included that touch interventions were particularly useful for newborns in regulating cortisol levels, helping newborns gain weight, and reducing pain. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

States are creating legislation to try to better protect their healthcare workers

State lawmakers and hospitals are scrambling to protect the nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers that are increasingly experiencing workplace violence. Dozens of states have passed laws or are working on bills that aim to curb hospital and clinic violence by requiring detailed violence prevention plans from employers, increasing legal penalties for those who attack healthcare workers, or taking steps like requiring hospitals to have a law enforcement officer—not just a security officer—on-site.

Some argue that investment banking could be a health hazard

Back in 2012, a University of Southern California researcher published a decade-long study in which she observed investment bankers’ health. The results weren’t exactly stellar. Every individual the researcher observed developed a stress-related physical or emotional ailment within several years of working in investment banking.

35% of polled Americans said they'd view people differently if they knew they had a mental illness

In April 2025 polling, mental health remained highly stigmatized in the US. Though 88% of US adults say a mental health disorder is nothing to be ashamed about, 84% of them think the term "mental illness" carries a stigma and only about half of respondents said they'd feel comfortable sharing their mental health struggles with others.

How much is your parental mental load worth?

The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention regulates toxic substances

This office evaluates and manages risks from industrial chemicals and pesticides. It reviews new chemicals before they enter the market, restricts hazardous substances, and promotes safer alternatives to protect human health and the environment.

A podcast on America’s coming demographic crisis

This podcast explores how America’s coming demographic crisis is bad for employers. According to Bloomberg, businesses still need humans to make the economy work. However, too few workers in the US are actually working, and too few people are...

Read the Surgeon General's 2023 loneliness report claiming loneliness is an epidemic

This report details the specific health threats linked with loneliness, including that loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk of premature death by nearly 30%. Loneliness lowers our capability to mount an effective immune response to viruses and respiratory illness, can cause chronic inflammation on par with physical inactivity, and increases the risks for anxiety, depression, dementia, heart disease and stroke.

Why pregnant teachers were banned from classrooms

Until the 1970s, many schools required pregnant teachers to leave the classroom by mid-term. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled these policies unconstitutional, establishing that women could choose to keep working while pregnant.

Social worker tips on how to support someone grieving miscarriage or infant loss

As many as 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Annually in the US, 21,000 babies are born stillborn, with roughly the same number of babies dying before their first birthday. Grief for these individuals and families may be a lifelong process and there is no correct way for the person to grieve but actions that acknowledge the loss and allow them to discuss it—including asking the name of the child they lost—can be comforting.

Risk factors linked with ASD include older parents, preterm births, and toxic prenatal exposures

Though researchers agree that there is a strong genetic component to ASD development, certain environmental factors heighten that risk, with studies suggesting older parents, premature birth, maternal obesity, and air pollution exposure in utero all elevate risks of ASD development. There is no connection between receiving vaccines and ASD development.

Reporting if supplements make you ill helps FDA know what products to investigate

The US Food and Drug Administration regulates supplements like foods and can only take action about a supplement if they learn that there are problems with it after it's on the market. This website allows consumers, industry, and others to file a complaint about a product that made them ill or raised other concerns.

More extreme heat days are putting human health at risk in both the short and long term

America is generally experiencing more frequent extreme heat days, over a longer period, in certain parts of the country. The heat-related death toll is rising, and beyond those direct deaths, extreme heat can also have troubling ripple effects including elevated violence and decreased productivity.

About 40% of cancer cases are linked to preventable risk factors

Maintaining a healthy weight, engaging in regular physical activity, and consuming a balanced diet can lower cancer risk. Research indicates that about 40% of US cancer cases are linked to preventable factors, including poor diet and inactivity. Understanding these mechanisms empowers individuals to adopt healthier lifestyles for cancer prevention.

Employers get to keep any FSA funds not used by the annual deadline

Flexible spending arrangements have use it or lose it deadlines defined in the plan. Employers that offer FSAs get to keep any unused funds, but that money has to go towards administering the FSA program. Remaining FSA funds can also be pooled and divided evenly amongst a company's FSA participants, but very few companies actually do this.

Find fertility clinics and their success rates in your state

This database from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a searchable portal of fertility clinics across the US, with reported data on services, total procedures performed, and live births recorded for as recently as 2022.

Early pay transparency studies

Pay transparency is a relatively new legal phenomenon, so studies on its impact are limited. However, this article details a few early studies that suggest pay transparency legislation could help decrease the gender pay gap, increase labor participation rates, and reduce employer recruiting costs. Learn more here.

Most common jobs in the US

Most US government organizations list roughly 500 primary occupations that most Americans fall into, such as teachers and cashiers. Using data from the 2018 through 2022 American Community Survey, these graphics break down the most common jobs in the US by age, gender, and more. See the graphics here.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Experimental hantavirus vaccines and therapies, still under development, have long been funded by the US military.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Between 10 million and 50 million people in the US develop rashes from poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak each year.

The USPS spent $3.97B in 2024, accounting for .058% of the federal budget.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.