Comprehensive Approaches to Healthy Work Design and Well-Being

Total Worker Health Participatory Action Research to Impact Health of Workers in Precarious Jobs

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The University of Illinois Chicago Center for Healthy Work (CHW) is a NIOSH-funded Center for Excellence for Total Worker Health? (TWH) that implements participatory action research by engaging communities to understand how precarious work impacts residents, building the skills of public health and labor to collaboratively identify pathways to healthy work, and working with local leaders to leverage resources to implement TWH initiatives. The CHW utilizes PAR through the Greater Lawndale Healthy Work project and Healthy Communities through Healthy Work to embrace social justice and health equity as a research orientation that is better suited to addressing complex health issues, like precarious work and OSH disparities, through TWH.

Center for Health, Work & Environment: A Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The purpose of the Center for Health, Work & Environment (CHWE) Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health (TWH) is to advance the overall safety, health, and well-being of workers through transdisciplinary research, effective interventions, outreach and communications, education/training, and rigorous evaluation that inform improvements in all of the above. CHWE addresses the need for research on Total Worker Health intervention strategies, focusing on the large number of workers and workplaces at highest risk of occupational fatality, injury, and illness. Specifically, CHWE research will build on the team?s experience in creating innovative TWH interventions and practical outreach tools for small businesses, the education industry, and other high-risk sectors such as agriculture.

Quantifying Sick Leave Among Those Who Work Primarily Outside of the Home During 2020

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

The 2020 Summer and Fall Styles surveys asked whether currently employed adult respondents who reported working outside the home were able to take sick leave from work. We measured sick leave availability among respondents working outside the home in both surveys by total population and the subset of those diagnosed with COVID-19. Between Summer and Fall 2020, the proportion of people working outside of the home with access to paid sick leave decreased significantly.

Uncovering the sources and impacts of fatigue for onshore oil and gas extraction workers

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

To better understand motor vehicle injuries and associated risk factors in the U.S. onshore oil and gas extraction (OGE) industry, NIOSH researchers set out to survey 500 OGE workers. Survey respondents reported extreme daily commutes, long work hours, and limited sleep all of which were significantly associated with risky driving behaviors and poor driving safety outcomes. The NIOSH researchers are initiating a new research study to identify and describe fatigue in this workforce. The goal of this project is to produce baseline estimates of fatigue for onshore OGE workers, develop initial guidance to employers about the types of work tasks, work schedules, and determine operational environments that should be targeted for fatigue-related interventions.

An Expanded Conceptual Model for Research on Work, Safety, Health, and Well-being

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, & Well-being is a NIOSH Total Worker Health? Center of Excellence. Its mission is to protect and promote the safety, health, and well-being of workers through integrated workplace policies, programs, and practices that foster safe and healthy conditions of work. Building on its systems-level conceptual model centered on the conditions of work, the Center has expanded this model to include employment & labor patterns and the social/political/economic environment. The Center?s three unifying themes, informed by our conceptual model, provide a framework for setting priorities to ensure that our research and dissemination efforts make a difference in improving the conditions of work.

New venture launch: The impacts of relationship quality and spousal commitment

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The study purpose is to examine individual and relational contributions to an entrepreneur?s perception of their spouse?s commitment to a new business venture one year after its creation. Hobfoll?s Conservation of Resources theory of stress was the theoretical grounding for the study of 73 entrepreneurs and their spouses. Whether a spouse was involved in the new venture prior to its launching, whether the spouse perceived the new venture to be a positive influence on their couple relationship, and an entrepreneur?s positive global affect one year after the launch predicted the entrepreneur?s perception of spousal commitment to the new venture one year after its launch. Spousal involvement had the strongest influence on entrepreneur?s perception of spousal commitment followed by spousal expectation of the business on their couple relationship and entrepreneur?s global affect.

Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a NIOSH Total Worker Health Center of Excellence

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The poster abstract is a description of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a NIOSH Total Worker Health Center of Excellence.

Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The vision of the Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest is to create a safe, healthy, and productive workforce through basic and applied research, participatory approaches, and theory driven education and translation activities. The HWC is a collaboration which includes the University of Iowa, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas Medical Center, WorkWell KS, and two NIOSH Total Worker Health? Affiliates (the Nebraska Safety Council and the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition).

NIOSH Healthy Work Design and Well-Being Program

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Healthy Work Design and Well-Being (HWD) National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Program seeks to improve the design of work, work environments, management practices, and organizational policies in order to advance worker safety, health, and well-being. The HWD Program partners with industry, labor, trade associations, professional organizations, and academia to address HWD needs. This poster describes how the program and its partners address outcomes of interest under the umbrella of safety, health, and well-being including but not limited to traditional injury and illness; depression, anxiety, suicide, PTSD; substance abuse, and cognitive impairment; metabolic disorders, and sleep disorders; and well-being (quality of life, hedonic, and evaluative well-being).

Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW)

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) is a Total Worker Health Center for Excellence that was first developed in 2006. The Center comprises cross-disciplinary researchers from the University of Connecticut (Health Center and Storrs campuses) and the University the University of Massachusetts (Lowell campus). Primary projects of the research core include two large, multi-phase intervention studies (SHIFT II healthcare study and Total Teacher Health public school study) and a 2-year exploratory study to develop organizational and educational approaches that imbed TWH concepts into employer crisis planning and preparedness. The outreach core (TWH r2p Hub) translates research knowledge and lessons generated through implementation materials and programs designed to improve the adoption of TWH in real-world employment settings. Features of CPH-NEW include a common core interest in developing participatory and worker empowerment approaches; continuous improvement of HWPP tools and guidance to users; a focus on mental health and well-being in addition to physical health; and prioritizing research and outreach with essential public sector workers.