Global Health Initiatives

NIOSH recognizes the need for global partnership and participation in accomplishing its mission of providing national and world leadership to prevent work-related illnesses and injuries. Global collaborations can take the form of participating in the WHO global network for occupational health as a collaborating center, partnerships to investigate alternative approaches to workplace illness and injury reduction and provide technical assistance to put solutions in place, international collaborative research, and building global professional capacity to address workplace hazards through training, information sharing and research experience.

NIOSH supports funding to support global occupational safety and health (OSH) initiatives through long-standing collaborations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and partnership with the NIH Fogarty International Center (FIC). NIOSH has been the WHO Collaborating Center in Occupational Health for the United States since 1976, and has been involved in program planning, collaborative research, training, management, and direct staff interaction with WHO’s Program on Workers’ Health.

Since 1995, NIOSH has co-sponsored international research training in occupational and environmental health through a very successful collaboration with the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center and NIEHS. This co-sponsorship has supported dozens of research training grants across the globe designed to prepare the next generation of scientists, researchers and practitioners to deal effectively with the increasing burden of occupational injury and illness around the world.

NIOSH is a co-sponsoring agency of the Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program that aims to support and catalyze a multi-national network of regional hubs led by one Low or Middle Income Country (LMIC) institution and one U.S. institution to conduct research and research training, develop relevant curricula, and support the science needed to inform nationally-relevant policy development. The GEOHealth program builds on a 16-year collaboration between the Fogarty International Center (FIC), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and NIOSH that supported research and research training grants linking U.S. academic centers with institutions in the developing world through the International Training and Research in Environmental and Occupational Health (ITREOH) program. The hubs developed through the new program will better fit the landscape of today’s scientific and institutional needs by supporting team science in multi-institutional networks led by developing country institutions. More information about the GEOHealth program can be found at http://www.fic.nih.gov/Programs/Pages/environmental-occupational.aspx.