Steps to a Healthier US Workforce Symposium October 26-28, 2004

Combining Healthy Working & Healthy Living
Please mark your calendar now and join us to launch a new national initiative, “Steps to a Healthier U.S. Workforce,” aimed at integrating worker healthy lifestyle promotion with the NIOSH mission of protecting and improving working conditions and work environment. Your interest, support and attendance would be most helpful in shaping this initiative.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with several co-sponsors will convene a three day Symposium on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington D.C. on October 26-28, 2004. The initiative recognizes that workers, families, and employers share the goal of wishing to protect, preserve, and improve the health of people at work. By bringing together the health promotion and occupational safety and health communities we are seeking to highlight common interests and develop mutually supportive strategies for research and practice to improve worker health, safety, and well-being.

The Symposium will:

• Provide researchers, policymakers, practitioners, academics, employers and labor leaders an opportunity to share their experiences with integrated and coordinated health promotion and protection programs.
  
  
• Assess the scientific basis for integrated approaches and suggest future directions for relevant research and improved practice;
  
  
• Explore economic issues related to the interrelationships among work, health, health care needs, and productivity.
  
  
• Highlight successful programs, practices, and policies of protection and promotion resulting in improved health for people at work.

NIOSH is currently identifying organizations interested in contributing to this new initiative by participating in agenda development, outreach and publicity and assisting in follow up activities. Please email Tanya Headley at theadley@cdc.gov for more information about this exciting new initiative. For additional information please visit the STEPS to a HealthierUS Workforce web site, http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/steps.

Sincerely, John Howard, M.D. Director National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

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