CPH-NEW Quarterly News

Quarterly News and Updates

September 2022

Nature in New England presents a beautiful art show with dazzling colors as the leaves make their transition during fall. Likewise, CPH-NEW projects are transitioning to their next phases with exciting new opportunities for professionals in human resources, worker advocacy, or occupational health and safety. Please consider joining one of our new initiatives outlined in "Get Involved," below.

In this issue, we turn our attention to ergonomics as we prepare for October's National Ergonomics Month. Did you know that CPH-NEW's Healthy Workplace Participatory Program (HWPP) can be used to improve safe patient handling programs? Learn how the HWPP was used by a community hospital (see Alicia Kurowski's article below) and by a tertiary care hospital using a Lean approach. CPH-NEW continues to offer free continuing education specifically focused on ergonomics in the healthcare setting.

Save-the-Date - October 27, 1pm EST - for our next Trends webinar, featuring NIOSH's Rebecca Guerin, PhD, who will discuss Implementation Science methods and measures in Total Worker Health^® research and evaluation. Learn about this and other learning opportunities in "Events," below.

Get involved in NEW Total Worker Health education activities!

Are you an occupational safety and health (OSH) professional?

Please take a 10-15 minute survey to help us assess TWH competencies and educational needs of OSH professionals. The results will help pinpoint specific knowledge and skills to address with TWH continuing education across the career spectrum.

Take the TWH survey

Are you a Human Resources Professional?

Total Worker Health Employer Crises Preparedness Training: Oct – Dec 2022. Register your interest by 9/14/22 HERE

Crises – be they storms, pandemics, acts of violence – challenge Human Resources professionals in new and fundamental ways. CPH-NEW and the Northeast Human Resources Association invite Human Resources professionals to participate in a 10 session course (6 online, 4 in-person). Participants will emerge with concrete preparedness plans including a vulnerability analysis, building preparedness teams, designing communication strategies, inspiring leadership, and designing policies and practices to facilitate employee wellbeing and retention in the face of disasters.

In-person sessions will be in Marlboro MA (8:30am-10:30am) – Breakfast included! On-line sessions 1.5 hours.
Space is limited to 12 spots. Open to directly-employed human resources practitioners who can demonstrate support from your organization for your participation and latitude to implement planning activities. EOHS and Operations professionals are also welcome.
The course if free, but we need your commitment to complete the course and related activities such as surveys. This course is being offered as part of a research project sponsored by NIOSH’s Total Worker Health program.
Questions? Contact Cora_Roelofs@uml.edu

Are you a union member or worker advocate?

Are you looking for ways to engage workers to enhance their health and well-being? Would you like to become more skillful when leading meetings? The Total Worker Health^® Train the Trainer course was designed for you! This course is designed for staff and members of worker organizations and unions from any industry! Participants will learn tools to effectively facilitate any meeting, build labor management collaboration, and facilitate a design process that builds worker power to address important health, safety and well-being issues. Register for a Wednesday or Friday class in November!

Using Participatory Ergonomics to Advance Safe Patient Handling in a Community Hospital

Contributed by Alicia Kurowski, Sc.D., Research Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, UMass Lowell

The health care industry employs more than 15% of the US workforce, and patient care-related injuries, especially those related to moving patients, are the most common cause of work disability in this industry. Ergonomic interventions to minimize exposure to manually moving patients by use of slings, mechanical lifts, and patient transfer aids have become the primary strategy to prevent these problems, and have consistently led to significant reductions in number of injuries, workers’ compensation claims, and related costs. Continue reading here.

CPH-NEW News & Views

CPH-NEW Continuing Education and Training

Ergonomics in Healthcare: A Continuing Education Program for Nurses, Nursing Assistants and Healthcare Managers: This free program online program for nurses consists of six self-paced learning modules to identify and reduce ergonomic hazards. More information here.

Total Worker Health for Occupational Safety and Health Professionals: This self-paced, online continuing education course provides an introduction to TWH and how it applies to OSH professional practice. More information here.

Total Worker Health Facilitator Training: Sharpen your facilitation skills in this virtual training course. Register here for classes in November!

Job Stress: A Continuing Education Program for Today’s Nurse: This online program is designed for nurses. More information here.

Continuing Education & Training Page

Events

September 21, 2022, 11 A.M. MST, Health Links Webinar "A Total Worker Health Approach to the Built Environment and Getting Outdoors at Work" Register here.

September 28, 2022, 12 P.M. PST, California Labor Lab Presents "Past as Prologue: How the History of Occupational Illness and Injury Teaches Us about Where We are Today" Register here.

September 28, 2022: Publication date for The World Health Organization Guidelines on Mental Health at Work, and the accompanying Policy Brief from the World Health Organization and International Labour Organization. WHO’s first-ever global guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations for supporting those who live with, or without, a mental health condition to participate and thrive at work.

October 14-15, 2022, ERGO-X 2022 Symposium. "Designing Technology for People" This years symposium held in Atlanta Georgia, will showcase and apply the latest ergonomics science to workplace health, safety, wellness, and injury-prevention issues across a variety of domains and settings. Register here.

October 27, 2022, 1 P.M. EST, CPH-NEW's Total Worker Health Trends: Expert Webinar Series: "Implementation Science Approaches for Occupational Safety and Health Research: Implications for Advancing Total Worker Health" Join Rebecca Guerin, PhD, as she shares insights about opportunities for leveraging implementation science methods, models, strategies, and measures in complex and dynamic workplace settings to increase worker safety, health, and well-being. Please register here.

November 2, 2022, 12-3pm EST (9am Pac), Oregon Healthy Workforce Center. "TWH 101: The Basics" 3-hr virtual course. Register here.

Events Page

New Publications

Main CJ, Shaw WS, Nicholas MK, Linton SJ. System-level efforts to address pain-related workplace challenges.. Pain. 2022;163(8):1425-1431.

Publications & Articles

Listen, Read, Watch

Research to Practice (R2P) Roadmap: California Labor Lab tool designed to help occupational safety and health researchers strategically think about how to move their research findings into the world for impact.

"Work and worker health in the post-pandemic world: a public health perspective" The Center for Work, Health and Well-being present their findings on the state of worker health post-COVID-19.

"Impact of Precarious Work on Neighborhood Health" The Chicago Center for Healthy Work shares the work for their community partnership as they map out the impacts of precarious work on neighborhoods.

Center-affiliated graduate students win ASSP scholarships!

Chandni Shahdev is a second-year doctoral student in public health epidemiology and former CPH-NEW research assistant. Her interests include occupational health and safety, and infection prevention and control. This fall she will serve as the vice president of UMass Lowell section of ASSP Greater Boston Student Chapter and is looking forward to collaborating with safety professionals to form strong ties to create a healthy and safe community.

Andrea Vivaldi is a first-year doctoral student in Industrial Engineering, specializing in Safety, Ergonomics, and Human Factors. This fall, she will serve as president of the UMass Lowell section ASSP Greater Boston Student Chapter and will work with UML’s EHS department to collaborate on safety initiatives. She is committed to expanding the reach of the student section and providing valuable resources to the section members.

Total Worker Health^® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Participation by CPH-NEW does not imply endorsement by HHS, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). This publication was supported by Grant Number 1 U19 OH012299. Its contents are solely the responsibility of CPH-NEW and do not necessarily reflect the views of NIOSH.

CPH-NEW is a NIOSH TWH Center of Excellence

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