TOTAL WORKER HEALTH®

Outputs: Research to Practice

Historically, NIOSH has been a leader in applying research findings into workplace solutions that reduce injury and illness. Research to Practice (r2p) is a NIOSH initiative focused on the transfer and translation of research findings, technologies, and information into highly effective prevention practices and products that are adopted in the workplace.

The goal of r2p is to increase workplace use of effective NIOSH and NIOSH-funded research findings. NIOSH continues to work with our partners to focus research on ways to develop effective products, translate research findings into practice, target dissemination efforts, and evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of these efforts in improving worker safety and health.

NIOSH WorkLife Centers of Excellence

For the past five years, NIOSH has funded and partnered with three national WorkLife Centers of Excellence to explore and research the concepts of Total Worker Health^®. The Centers’ research examines the integration and cross-promotion of worker protection, worksite enhancement, and worker health promotion interventions. The effort strives to recognize the synergy in combining efforts to reduce personal health risk factors with traditional safety and psychosocial stress hazard reduction approaches in the workplace.

Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW)
The Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) is a collaborative research-to-practice initiative led by investigators from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the University of Connecticut. The Center’s research goal is to evaluate the feasibility, effectiveness, and economic benefits of integrating occupational health and safety with health promotion interventions to improve employee health. There is a strong emphasis on workplace occupational ergonomic interventions and on worker involvement. Outcomes of particular interest include musculoskeletal health, mental health and cardiovascular health.

Harvard School of Public health Center or Work, Health and Wellbeing
The Center is a collaboration between the Harvard School of Public Health, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Center for Community-Based Research, Partners Health Care, Inc., the Boston University School of Public Health, New England Research Institutes, the Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The Center is meant to serve as an incubator to stimulate and support new research, promote the training of new investigators, and provide a vehicle for dissemination and communication of research findings and best practices.

The University of Iowa Healthier Workforce Center for Excellence (HWCE)
The University of Iowa Healthier Workforce Center for Excellence (HWCE) was built upon extensive investigator experience in occupational health, ergonomics, injury prevention, preventive medicine, and health promotion. The HWCE was designed to improve our understanding of effective, integrated employee health programs and to translate this evidence base into practice for the benefit of employed populations

The Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (ORhwc)
The Oregon Healthy WorkForce Center (ORhwc), a NIOSH Center of Excellence, is a collaboration of Oregon Health & Science University's (OHSU) Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET), Portland State University's (PSU) Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) program, the Center for Health Research (CHR) and the University of Oregon's Labor Education Research Center (LERC). The ORhwc focuses on intervention effectiveness with emphasis on team-based and technology-based interventions to translate research into practice and improved social support and reduced job stress that will produce improved lifestyle choices, safer work practices and better mental and physical health.