TOTAL WORKER HEALTH

NIOSH Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health^®

NIOSH funds six Centers of Excellence (Centers) to conduct research on the concepts of Total Worker Health. The Centers advance knowledge by building the scientific evidence base through research and practice that aims to improve the overall safety, health, and well-being of the diverse population of workers in our nation. The Centers use multidisciplinary research projects, including intervention-focused research, outreach and education, and evaluation activities to improve our understanding of which solutions work. The Centers’ research examines the integration of occupational safety and health protection with workplace policies, programs, and practices to advance worker safety, health and well-being.
The Centers of Excellence are crucial to gaining knowledge that can help workers, employers, and communities. The scientists at the Centers, along with their partners in government, business, labor, and community are the conduits for research-to-practice effort that hold promise to impact the health and productivity of the American worker. Because the TWH approach is so comprehensive, innovative and transdisciplinary thinking is needed to inform current policies, programs and practices.  The Centers are uniquely qualified to be among the nation’s thought leaders. The contingent workforce, the changing nature of work, low wage workers, shift work, fatigue, and workforce diversity are examples of the variety of important topics that the Centers are addressing –all of which will help workers, employers, and communities. Current work being conducted at the Centers includes:

• Pilot testing promising workplace policies and programs
• Developing and disseminating best practices and tool kits
• Developing strategies for overcoming barriers to organizational acceptance and adoption of integrated, coordinated work-based interventions
• Investigating costs and benefits associated with integrated programs
• Promoting increased development and application of physiological and biological markers of stress, sleep, and depression and their use for worker protection and improved health outcomes.

In 2016, NIOSH funded six Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health. Centers are located at the Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, CU Anschutz in Denver, CO; the University of Connecticut/University of Massachusetts in Lowell, MA; Harvard University in Boston, MA; the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA; Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, OR; and at the University of Illinois-Chicago in Chicago, IL.

Center for Health, Work & Environment

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

• At the University of Massachusetts
• At the University of Connecticut

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Work, Health and Well-being

Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest

Oregon Healthy WorkForce Center (OHWC)

University of Illinois-Chicago Center for Healthy Work

Search NIOSH Publications and Products for Centers of Excellence to Promote a Healthier Workforce

Center for the Promotion of Health in New England Workplace

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center Work, Health, and Well-being

Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest (formerly the University of Iowa Healthier Workforce Center)

Oregon Healthy WorkForce Center (OHWC)

Search NIOSHTIC-2, a bibliographic database of occupational safety and health publications, documents, grant reports, and journal articles supported in whole or in part by NIOSH, or try one of these pre-generated search queries.

For further information about funding opportunities, visit the NIOSH Office of Extramural Programs.