Too busy: why time is a health and environmental problem

Lyndall Strazdins; Bernadette Loughrey

doi:10.1071/NB07029

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Too busy: why time is a health and environmental problem

Lyndall Strazdins ^A ^B and Bernadette Loughrey ^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University

^B Corresponding author. Email: lyndall.strazdins@anu.edu.au

NSW Public Health Bulletin 18(12) 219-221 https://doi.org/10.1071/NB07029
Published: 6 December 2007

Abstract

Time pressure is emerging as a modern malaise. It is linked to changes in working life, with longer work hours and faster work pace, and it is compounded in families; nowadays both parents must combine working with caring. Time pressure also challenges urban, health and environmental policy because many interventions have an unacknowledged time dimension. People need time to keep healthy, to exercise and to maintain strong social and family bonds. If urban designs or environmental solutions can reduce time demands they may directly improve health and social outcomes. However, where they increase time demands they may have unanticipated health costs, create disincentives for the uptake of interventions and disadvantage those who are most time poor.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dorothy Broom, Tony Capon and Jane Dixon for their comments and help with earlier drafts, and Tessa McDonald for her input on policy strategies.

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