Abstract
The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a research framework for the nation and for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The Healthy Work Design and Well-Being Cross-Sector (HWD) council was formed in 2016 to improve the design of work, work environments, and management practices with the goal of advancing worker safety, health, and well-being. Within the healthy work design framework, worker well-being encompasses positive physical, emotional, mental, and economic health, and how these aspects of health relate to work and worker experiences from a comprehensive and holistic perspective. The NORA Healthy Work Design and Well-Being Cross-Sector Council brings together individuals and organizations to share information, form partnerships, and promote adoption and dissemination of solutions that work. The Council seeks to facilitate the most important research, understand the most effective intervention strategies, and learn how to implement those strategies to achieve sustained improvements in workplace practices.
Background and Development of the Research Agenda
The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a partnership program to stimulate innovative research and workplace solutions. NORA entered its third decade in 2016 with an enhanced structure of ten industry sectors and seven cross-sectors organized addressing major workplace health and safety issues (https://www.cdc.gov/nora/councils/default.html). The HWD Council is a cross-sector council comprised of 35 individuals including 24 external stakeholders and 11 NIOSH representatives. The external members come from academia, industry, safety organizations and labor safety and health advocates and many have HF/E interests, skills and backgrounds.
In January of 2020, the Council published its research agenda (NORA HWD 2020) which focuses on furthering the most needed research and intervention strategies to advance the safety, health and well-being of America’s workers through healthy work design approaches. The National Occupational Research Agenda for Healthy Work Design and Well-Being is intended to identify the knowledge and actions most urgently needed to identify occupational risk factors to prevent avoidable adverse outcomes among workers. This agenda provides a vehicle for interested parties to describe the most relevant issues, research gaps, and needs for the U.S. workforce. It is meant to be broader than any one agency or organization.
The HWD Agenda was developed through a series of online meetings, conference calls, and email communications. A draft list of relevant topics was drawn up, then refined and grouped into seven broad objectives by the HWD Council. Subgroups of council members were formed for each of the objectives. These sub-groups were charged with developing the background and rationale for their objective, identifying the primary research topics to be emphasized, and describing the major gaps in the existing knowledge base. This information was then shared with and critiqued by the full council. The seven objectives are listed below.
Using Objective 1 as an example, the following research gaps were identified related to worker demographics:
Enable better sharing of data among state and national agencies to improve the understanding about the nature, source, and consequences of injuries and illnesses among older and younger workers.
Gather and disseminate best practices for age- and disability-friendly workplace policies, including job redesign interventions, flexible scheduling models, and anti-discrimination policies.
Conduct intervention research on strategies including youth leadership training programs, community awareness campaigns, and school based and job training programs to promote awareness among young workers about occupational safety and health and development of necessary skills to advocate for improved working conditions, and active participation in efforts to address occupational hazards.
Conduct research on the association between gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and the experience of discrimination, sexual harassment, pay inequality, work-life conflict, job design, and exposures to reproductive hazards.
Conduct research on the impact of racial and ethnic discrimination and disparities in the workplace and its effect on worker safety, health, and well-being.
Conduct research on the impact of wages and hours on workers’ health status.
Conduct research into the extent of underreporting of injuries and illnesses by foreign-born and other vulnerable workers and by their employers, and identify best practices in data collection strategies and systems.
Collect and disseminate best practices for addressing the occupational safety and health of foreign-born workers, including policies that prevent workplace discrimination, promote worker involvement in identifying and addressing hazards without fear of retaliation, and education and training efforts that reflect the specific language and literacy needs of diverse workers.
Conduct intersectional research that examines the effects of all aspects of worker demographics on worker safety, health, and well-being.
Further Developments and Current Status of the HWD Agenda
Two further developments related to the HWD Cross-sector Council include the NIOSH Strategic Plan and the Healthy Work Design Implementation Plan. HWD priorities are featured in the NIOSH Strategic Plan for FYs 2019-2024. This plan includes a number of research priorities related to HWD in specific industries and occupations. These priorities were established based on analyses of burden, need, and impact. Priority areas of HWD-related research include:
Reduce injuries and illnesses related to precarious employment arrangements, work design, fatigue and mental health in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing sector
Reduce injuries and illnesses among temporary workers and other workers in non-standard work arrangements in the Construction sector.
Improve occupational safety and health through work design in the Healthcare and Social Assistance sector, especially reducing adverse stress-induced physical & mental health outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression, fatigue, burnout, suicide & substance use disorders)
Reduce fatigue-related injuries among workers in the Mining sector.
Prevent injuries associated with work organization factors that contribute to fatigue, misuse of prescription drugs (including opioids), illicit drugs, and substance use/misuse in the Oil and Gas Extraction sector.
Improve safety and health among contingent workers and workers in non-standard work arrangements in the Services sector.
Improve work design in the Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities sector to address obesity and chronic disease, fatigue-related injuries, and injuries associated with human-machine interaction
Improve work design in the Wholesale and Retail Trade sector to reduce musculoskeletal disorders and reduce injuries and illnesses among contingent workers, young workers, and other workers who have been economically and socially marginalized.
Effectively integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being (i.e. Total Worker Health [TWH™] approach) in the Construction, Healthcare and Social Assistance, Public Safety, and Services sectors.
The HWD Council has also developed an implementation plan (NORA HWD Council 2022) with the goal of motivating action by researchers and interested parties to address the seven research objectives and associated gaps identified in the HWD research agenda. The Plan identifies achievable next steps to prevent adverse worker health and safety outcomes and improve the work experience. It is organized using the key research objectives defined in the HWD Research Agenda. The plan lists possible initiatives, projects, products, or other actions to address research gaps and carry out each objective. The list of proposed actions seeks to address a variety of current and emerging issues pertinent to the design of work.
Work Products and Accomplishments
Following the Objectives and Strategic Plan, the HWD Council has produced a number of work products and accomplishments, a sample which are given below:
Administered the NIOSH Quality of Life (QWL) Survey as a module of the General Social Survey (GSS). The QWL is the major source for tracking work organization and quality of work life factors at the national level.
Published the NIOSH Worker Well-being Questionnaire (WellBQ), a freely available survey instrument that provides an integrated assessment of worker well-being across multiple spheres.
Published several journal articles and a series of blogs on fatigue, future of work, COVID-19 related worker health, and non-standard work arrangements.
Co-hosted the 3rd International Symposium to Advance Total Worker Health® held October 11-14, 2022, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) headquarters in Bethesda.
Co-managed the Work, Stress, and Health 2021 virtual conference. Approximately 659 attendees accessed the on-demand conference across the globe.
Communicated HWD research and studies through chaired sessions and workshops at the European Academy for Occupational Health Psychology Conference in Bordeaux, France.
Future Directions
The HWD Council intends to continue to implement objectives from the HWD national occupational research agenda with industry and academic partners. A number of journal articles are in preparation along with publishing a special issue on fatigue in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and guest-editing a special issue on telework for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. HWD Council members are also co-hosting / planning the Work, Stress and Health conference in 2023 along with a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health exploring effective approaches for addressing mental health within the health workforce. Furthermore, the HWD Council wishes to facilitate a HWD-HFES partnership and inform, engage and involve more human factors and ergonomics practitioners and researchers in the Council, which is the intent of this poster session. The author wishes to thank Dr. Dave DeJoy, Professor Emeritus, of the University of Georgia and Dr. Naomi Swanson of NIOSH for their assistance in preparing this paper.
Footnotes
Disclaimer
No conflict of interest is declared. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mention of any company or product does not constitute endorsement of NIOSH.
