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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control wants us to know what many intuitively know is true: “Good Health is Good Business.”
Through its National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) arm, the CDC has introduced Total Worker Health™: “Total Worker Health™ is a strategy integrating occupational safety and health protection with health promotion to prevent worker injury and illness and to advance health and well-being.”
The explanation continues: “Today, emerging evidence recognizes that both work-related factors and health factors beyond the workplace jointly contribute to many safety and health problems that confront today’s workers and their families. Traditionally, workplace safety and health programs have been compartmentalized. Health protection programs have focused squarely on safety, reducing worker exposures to risk factors arising in the work environment itself. And most workplace health promotion programs have focused exclusively on lifestyle factors off-the-job that place workers at risk. A growing body of science supports the effectiveness of combining these efforts through workplace interventions that integrate health protection and health promotion programs.”
Robin Hardman picked up on the program and wrote about it recently in Huffington Post: “In other words, instead of having one department devoted to worker safety and ergonomics–the sorts of things that fall under the purview of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)– and another, completely different department devoted to the wellness incentive programs that are currently all the rage, and perhaps yet another department devoted to work-life integration, companies ought to be seeing all aspects of worker health, safety and well-being as the deeply interrelated concerns they are. After all, it all comes down to healthier, less stressed, more engaged workers, does it not?”
In fact, Hardman spoke with”Casey Chosewood, director of the Office for Total Worker Health, to find out more about this remarkable program. Chosewood pointed out that NIOSH's priority is still on-the-job health and safety–that's the point all employers should be starting from. But he defines such health and safety quite broadly.”
Said Chosewood: “You want work that's high-quality, that's respectful of employees, that doesn't diminish health based on the nature of the work itself. Once a company gets that baseline and can say ‘yes, we have a safe, respectful workplace,' then we believe it is time for companies to say, hey, what more can we do to improve outcomes?”
The NIOSH site provides a range of useful resources, including webinars, newsletters, research, guidelines and more.
Even more information can be found in the CDC's Business Pulse: Healthy Workforce. Here they cover: “Work-related injuries, sick employees, chronic diseases and an aging workforce are challenges U.S. businesses of all sizes face. Learn how CDC is helping employers maximize worker health and safety while improving profitability and productivity.”
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