Friday the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC) External Advisory Committee met on the OHSU campus in the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences seminar room. The Committee considered the progress and accomplishments of the OHWC in it’s first 3+ years and its plans for its next grant application for a new 5-year cycle.
The committee is pictured below, commenting on the weighty issues surrounding workforce health in Oregon and the US. The seriousness of the issues are reflected in the committee’s demeanor and that of the scientists in the Center. Population health is a very serious issue for our country and the workforce is half the US population.
The OHWC accomplishments were in the areas of:
- Research studies of safety and health interventions in home care workers, construction (public and private), corrections and young workers. Each research and one translational project has conducted a randomized control trial (RCT) and found significant changes in learning new information, improving safety and health as well as personal health or well-being. This research is largely complete and manuscripts describing it are undergoing peer review at science journals now or will soon be submitted.
- Outreach (partnerships, resources, blog) and education (Occupational Health Psychology Summer Institute with a special focus on Total Worker HealthTM or TWH).
The Oregon Healthy Workforce Center is developing it’s plans for new research, outreach and education in the next cycle and is meeting with different organizations to develop partnerships for that application. Fundamentally, the OHWC is developing the science questions and the partner organizations are identifying their needs – that we address through interventions built to answer our science questions. Generally the science questions are cast as hypotheses.
The External Advisory committee had praise for our accomplishments in the last 3+ years and sage advice on our direction as we plan our future. It’s an exciting time for us and we hope for our new partner organizations.
