NIOSH - the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - recently published the National Total Worker Health® Agenda, their workplace safety and health agenda for the next 10 years. It is intended to advance worker well-being by integrating occupational safety and health practices with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts. Readers can either read these highlights, a longer summary, or the actual report, entitled: A National Agenda to Advance Total Worker Health® Research, Practice, Policy, and Capacity.
The introduction to the agenda states that new approaches are needed because “scientific evidence now supports what many safety and health professionals, as well as workers themselves, have long suspected – that risk factors in the workplace can contribute to common health problems previously considered unrelated to work.”
By way of background, since the federal government became actively involved in workplace safety 43 years ago, deaths in the workplace have fallen by about two-thirds, while the size of the workforce has doubled–meaning the death rate is down about more than 80%. To put this in perspective, the entire age-adjusted death rate overall during this period has fallen by less than half. Plus, the reductions in the latter rate are concentrated among the very young and very old, not so much working-age people.
Lately, of course, death rates in one of NIOSH’s target populations have been rising–making the workplace mortality improvement even more striking.
The improvement is multi-factorial. Yes, NIOSH and OSHA regulations, oversight, inspections and penalties are partly responsible. But reputation, safety features, technology, offshoring of “dirty” work, and fewer inherently dangerous jobs (like coal mining) also contribute. Note that the improvement in the overall age-adjusted death rate has also benefited from similar major favorable trends. Yet the workplace death rate reduction has far outpaced the general decline.
On the other hand, there remain 3-million workplace-related injuries and illnesses/year, meaning the task is still at hand. And unlike heart attacks and diabetes, many of these injuries and illnesses can actually be prevented by the employer.
The centerpiece of the NIOSH Total Worker Health® agenda is that the workplace should be a safe and healthy place. Employees should be safe from accidents, hazards, chemicals, bullying and other “risk factors in the workplace that contribute to common health problems previously considered unrelated to work.”
The agenda aims to define and prioritize worker safety and health programs and practices through the next decade. The Total Worker Health® initiative “advocates for a holistic understanding of the factors that contribute to worker well-being,” NIOSH states on its website.
Included are four strategic goals: research, practice, policy and capacity building. Each of the four main goals has a subset of additional goals. The agenda also features an infographic listing issues that are relevant to worker well-being, including control of hazards and exposures; organization of work with attention paid to topics such as safe staffing, healthier shift work and flexible work arrangements; leadership; environmental support, such as good air quality and healthy food options; and community support.
NIOSH hopes the agenda will galvanize a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers, occupational safety and health practitioners, workers, and employers.
This post was adapted from a LinkedIn user blog and two previously published articles: Safety + Health Magazine’s “NIOSH Publishes National Total Worker Health® Agenda,” and They Said What?’s “NIOSH Publishes Groundbreaking ‘Total Worker Health®' Agenda.” You can read the original articles for more information. This article does not represent official NIOSH definitions.
