NIOSH Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health™

The Center for Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) employs an integrative and comprehensive research approach to reduce workforce hazards and promote worker health, through studying the links between workplace culture and personal high-risk behaviors and examining the effectiveness of designed workplace interventions. CPH-NEW proposes a multi-dimensional productivity/business case approach for engaging employers and workers in the development of healthier workplaces.

The Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) seeks to evaluate multiple models for integrating worksite health promotion (WHP) with occupational health and safety (OHS) interventions, and on enhancing musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and mental health. There is a strong emphasis on worker involvement in setting program goals and designing interventions, with an appreciation of both management and labor perspectives.

CPH-NEW has two research projects and one “Education, Translation, Communication and Dissemination” project. A key shared theme is intervening at multiple levels of an organization to improve worker health through an integrated systems approach. The research projects share common investigators and a core of common epidemiologic survey instruments. A “mixed methods”  approach  incorporates  qualitative  analyses  in  participatory  action  research  to generate  hypotheses  and  enhance  interpretation  of  quantitative  data.  A separate interdisciplinary structure, the Cross-Project Methods Teams, enhances internal communication, coordination of research methods, mutual learning from experiences in the field, two-way communication of researchers with employers and practitioners, and evaluation at both the center and project levels.

The Center conducts research to protect and promote the health of workers through effective workplace polices, programs and practices.  This research is currently focused on healthcare, construction and manufacturing.  The Center also facilitates translation of research findings to practice to ensure broad-based application. 

The mission of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health, and Well-being is to improve the health of workers through designing, testing, implementing and disseminating effective and integrated worksite policies, programs and practices that foster a healthy work environment, reduce potential hazardous job exposures and promote safe and healthy behaviors.  NIOSH has funded the Center as part of its Total Worker Health^TM initiative.  The Center currently have three main research projects.  BeWell, Work Well integrates health promotion and health protection strategies to improve the health and safety of health care workers.  All the Right Moves is developing and testing a musculoskeletal disorders and health promotion intervention for commercial construction workers.  In collaboration with a health promotion vendor, SafeWell is exploring the adoption of integrated health promotion and protection strategies by small to medium-sized businesses using The SafeWell Practice Guidelines: An Integrated Approach to Worker Health.

The University of Iowa Healthier Workforce Center (HWC),  is composed of a well-qualified and productive team of investigators dedicated to further developing the science-base for integrated health protection/health promotion programs through peer reviewed publication of its research, real-time translation of evidence-based employee health and safety educational and training tutorials nationally/globally, and outreach to inform state and national stakeholders through Center educational programs and policy papers and advocacy.

The HWC, works to implement, evaluate and compare health protection models and programs, policies and practices to promote health, with the goal of identifying Total Worker Health™ best and promising practices. Through research and outreach activities, the HWC serves as a state and national resource for employee health programs, services, and policies. The Center has a well-qualified leadership team and Internal Advisory Committee, highly qualified investigators, and is advised by its diverse External Advisory Committee. The HWC has demonstrated productive research and electronic translation of its research to practice through implementation and expansion of its outreach efforts and through the efforts of the Small Business Outreach Education and Translation Project. The Small Business Outreach project has developed online resources, including short videos, specifically targeting small- and medium-sized businesses to promote and support employee participation in workplace programs and policies. In addition, a trans-disciplinary research project is currently being conducted in a window manufacturing facility evaluating an integrated safety and health intervention that uses participatory ergonomics in coordination with health coaching to reduce ergonomic stressors, musculoskeletal disease outcomes and their related costs. The Center’s pilot grant program provides guidance and financial resources to engage students, new investigators and community partners in Total Worker Health™ research and initiatives. Through the Healthier Workforce Bulletin, website and social media, the Center shares outcomes and other evidence-based resources and TWH™ best practices to employers, particularly small- and medium-sized employers.

The Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC), a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health (TWH) is an affiliation of Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences (OHWC home) and Health Promotion and Sports Medicine, Portland State University’s (PSU) Occupational Health Psychology program, the University of Oregon’s Labor Education Research Center (LERC), Oregon State University’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences and the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente.  OHWC faculty and staff are developing and evaluating Total Worker Health intervention programs that integrate safety, health, wellness and well-being into integrated or associated programs designed to reduce injuries and improve wellness. They accomplish this by increasing healthy eating and exercise and reducing work stress through workplace interventions.  The OHWC, located in the Pacific Northwest, serves as a resource for the western states and complements the other three Centers of Excellence in New England (Harvard, Connecticut/Massachusetts) and Iowa. The OHWC is the only Center focusing on intervention effectiveness, successfully conducting randomized trials of innovative interventions and adding value with a cross-study database (Data Repository) of common measures across projects. The OHWC’s theme is Intervention Effectiveness using team-based and technology-based interventions to promote and protect health, and designed to be disseminated broadly to the workplace. The OHWC has an overarching conceptual model that predicts that interventions will lead to changes in knowledge and psychosocial factors that mediate or moderate hazard reductions and behavior change, which will in turn produce hazard reductions, safer work behavior, improved lifestyle choices, and better psychological and physical health. The OHWC program consists of five research projects, two initially conceptualized as translational projects, educational programs and outreach that are inter-related.

• The Center for Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) [PDF – 69 KB]
• The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health [PDF – 497 KB]
• The University of Iowa [PDF – 329 KB]
• Oregon Health & Science University [PDF – 359 KB]