Telework (also referred to as telecommuting or remote work), is defined as working outside of the conventional office setting, such as within one’s home or in a remote office location, often using a form of information communication technology to communicate with others (supervisors, coworkers, subordinates, customers, etc.) and to perform work tasks. Remote work increased over the last decade and tremendously in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this article is to review and critically evaluate the existing research about telework and worker health and well-being. In addition, we review and evaluate how engaging in this flexible form of work impacts worker health and well-being. Specifically, we performed a literature search on the empirical literature related to teleworking and worker health and well-being, and reviewed articles published after the year 2000 based on the extent to which they had been discussed in prior reviews. Next, we developed a conceptual framework based on our review of the empirical literature. Our model explains the process by which telework may affect worker health and well-being in reference to individual, work/life/family, organizational, and macro level factors. These components are explained in depth, followed by methodological and fundamental recommendations intended to guide future research, policies, and practices to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms associated with telework, and offer recommendations for future research.

Background: Inter-individual variation in response to insufficient or altered timing of sleep presents a challenge for the development of personalized approaches to fatigue monitoring and mitigation. Insufficient sleep has adverse health impacts, can result in impaired neurobehavioral performance, and can substantially increase the risk of injury and even mortality in safety–critical operations such as transportation. The present study provides a detailed exploration of physiological, neurobehavioral, and gene expression changes during sleep restriction, acute total sleep deprivation, and altered timing of sleep among 59 healthy volunteer participants who completed a 10-day inpatient study. Results: Reducing the quantity or altering the timing of sleep significantly impacts self-reported estimates of sleep duration, polysomnography-recorded sleep stages, and neurobehavioral performance test results. Impaired neurobehavioral performance was associated with transcriptomic changes in gene expression. A comparison of current and prior research on total sleep deprivation indicated that reproducible candidate gene expression biomarkers exist for at least one metric of attention, specifically, Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) lapses. Conclusions: Candidate biomarkers of fatigue-related impairment were identified that responded to single neurobehavioral performance endpoints, as well as those that responded to multiple types or metrics of performance. Reproducible identification of biomarker candidates for PVT lapses during total sleep deprivation increases confidence in the ability to develop a molecular approach to fatigue-related impairment detection, while novel discoveries expanded the list of candidate genes to other impairment metrics. Molecular biomarkers for neurobehavioral performance impairment represent a potentially valuable tool to more precisely monitor the neurobehavioral performance deficits resulting from sleep loss, and further research and validation could eventually augment fatigue risk management practices that historically emphasize scheduling and rest opportunities. The data generated from self-assessment, polysomnography, neurobehavioral performance, and molecular investigations provide a wealth of information made publicly available for further data mining and scientific advancements. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, TRN: NCT04211506, Registered 23 December 2019.