Integration of OSH and whp requires meaningful worker participation

Background An integrated approach to occupational health and safety (OHS) and workplace health promotion (WHP) programs should give equal weight to both domains, which is not always done in practice. The Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) addresses both employees' and organizational health. Objective We will present experiences from our intervention research and outreach to illustrate our conceptual paradigm, which reflects the social-ecological model, and to discuss the challenges and successes of an integrated approach. Methods and Results Efforts to recruit manufacturers met with enthusiasm at higher level but resistance from the units responsible for both loss control and employee wellness. A set of focus groups with low-wage Black and Latino workers highlighted many ways in which working conditions generate obstacles to healthy eating and exercise. In state corrections (public sector), our interventions have been successful enough to generate strong tri-partite participation, which even kept the project functioning during an un-funded year. Our research-to-practice toolkit is being adapted for the CDC's National Healthy Worksite Project as a model for implementing participatory processes to facilitate employee input into health goal-setting, program and design and evaluation, with the goal of enhanced effectiveness and longer-term sustainability. Conclusion(s) CPH-NEW emphasizes the contribution of work organization to health behaviors and draws heavily from participatory ergonomics for a framework to improve both physical and organizational features of work and, in the process, to empower individual workers (increase decision latitude and social support at work).