graphical header showing various types of workers

About us

Mission

Our Center is one of 10 Centers of Excellence funded by NIOSH to conduct research on the concepts of the Total Worker Health® approach.

The Center’s mission is to protect and promote the health, safety, and well-being of workers through designing, implementing, and disseminating effective workplace policies, programs, and practices.

The Center’s research focuses on working conditions that support a safe and healthy work environment. Increasingly, the value of integrating the traditionally separate efforts to protect and promote worker safety and health is being recognized.

An integrated approach

Our research on determinants of worker safety and health inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of integrated approaches to promoting and protecting worker health. Center research is based on the premise that conditions of work are important determinants of individual safety and health outcomes and behaviors, and of outcomes important to enterprises, such as absence and turnover. Integrated policies, programs, and practices simultaneously address multiple conditions of work, including the physical work environment and the organization of work (e.g., psychosocial factors, job tasks, and demands). 

The Center’s research and practice examine the causal pathways through which work may influence health outcomes. We do this by designing and testing interventions to improve worker safety and health that are meaningful for workers and employers, and responsive to that setting's conditions of work.

An evidence-based model

A growing body of evidence suggests that organizations optimize returns when they align health and safety initiatives not just with each other, but with their broader mission as well. The Center’s tools and resources empower safety and health professionals to work across disciplines and apply an evidence-based model to support worker health, safety, and well-being.