Category: Total Worker Health

Joint Pain in the Workplace

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) include a number of physical conditions affecting muscles, tendons, nerves, ligaments, joints, and other soft tissues that can be caused, or exacerbated, by work.  It is estimated that MSDs account for approximately one-third of injury and illness costs in U.S. industry.  Many musculoskeletal conditions can result specifically in chronic or short-term joint Read More >

Posted on by Brian D. Lowe, PhD, CPE; Brent A. Baker, PhD, ATC; Jim Grosch, PhD, MBA 41 Comments

Even a Dummy Knows October is Protect Your Hearing Month

Meet Nick.  Nick is a training mannequin who helps NIOSH teach young people and their families about preventing noise-induced hearing loss.  Hearing loss can result from working around noise–even non-powered hand tools–without wearing proper hearing protection. It is not uncommon for a 25 year-old farmer or carpenter to have the hearing of a 50 year-old.  Read More >

Posted on by Janet Ehlers, RN, MSN, COHC and Pamela S. Graydon, MS, COHC 29 Comments

VHA’s Success with Increasing Movement at Work

How can we help keep employees from becoming office potatoes?  It is a fact that a person who leads a sedentary lifestyle (commonly referred to as a couch potato) is at a higher risk of health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and certain cancers, but lately we have been hearing that sitting Read More >

Posted on by Ebi Awosika, MD, MPH 35 Comments

Sleep, Pain, and Hospital Workers

We know that decreased sleep duration and extended shifts in healthcare workers are linked to workplace injuries.  The effects of decreased sleep on pain in the workplace are less clear.  New research from the Harvard Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing  –one of four NIOSH Centers of Excellence funded to explore and research the concepts Read More >

Posted on by Orfeu M. Buxton, PhD; Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH 16 Comments

Making the Case for Paid Sick Leave

Does it make economic sense for employers to offer or expand paid sick leave benefits to their employees? A new NIOSH study published in the American Journal of Public Health reported that workers with access to paid sick leave were 28% less likely overall to suffer nonfatal occupational injuries than workers without access to paid Read More >

Posted on by Abay Asfaw, PhD; Regina Pana-Cryan, PhD; Roger R. Rosa, PhD 35 Comments

Safer and Healthier at Any Age: Strategies for an Aging Workforce

Profound changes continue to unfold in the American workforce as Baby Boomers—Americans born between 1945 and 1964—swell the ranks of our workplaces. This has led many employers to fear the possibilities of negative impacts associated with this demographic trend.  On one hand, they are concerned that having age-gifted workers on the job may mean escalating Read More >

Posted on by L. Casey Chosewood, MD17 Comments

The Research Compendium: The NIOSH Total Worker Health™ Program: Seminal Research Papers 2012

In October of 2004, together with our partners, NIOSH sponsored the Steps to a Healthier US Workforce Symposium to mark the launch of a new initiative based on a comprehensive view of worker safety and health. The symposium brought leaders together from the occupational safety and health community and the health promotion community.  We commissioned Read More >

Posted on by Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH; Ron Z. Goetzel, PhD; Seth A. Seabury, PhD; Anita L. Schill, PhD, MPH, MA; L. Casey Chosewood, MD14 Comments

NIOSH Research on Work Schedules and Work-related Sleep Loss

Yesterday, in honor of National Sleep Awareness Week, we blogged about sleep and work and the risks to workers, employers, and the public when workers’ hours and shifts do not allow for adequate sleep.   This blog provides a brief overview of some of the work that NIOSH intramural scientists are carrying out to better understand Read More >

Posted on by Claire Caruso, PhD, RN; Luenda Charles, PhD; Tina Lawson, PhD; Akinori Nakata, PhD; Karl Sieber, PhD; Sudha Pandalai, MD, PhD; and Ted Hitchcock, PhD28 Comments

Sleep and Work

Sleep is a vital biological function and many Americans don’t get enough. To coincide with National Sleep Awareness Week, the new NIOSH blog post: Sleep and Work summarizes the risks to workers, employers and the public when long hours and irregular shifts required by many jobs do not allow workers to get adequate sleep. Read More >

Posted on by Claire Caruso, PhD, RN, and Roger R Rosa, PhD78 Comments

A Comprehensive Approach to Workforce Health

“Traditional” occupational hazards and personal characteristics and conditions, such as age, gender, genetics, or weight, are typically considered separately in the workplace. However, most of the diseases and health conditions experienced by workers are influenced by multiple factors. NIOSH authors provide a framework for considering the health of working people in a comprehensive manner. Read More >

Posted on by Paul Schulte, PhD, and Sudha P. Pandalai, MD, PhD14 CommentsTags