The Center for Work, Health, and Well-being is a multidisciplinary research center using a Total Worker Health^® approach to advance the safety, health, and well-being of workers.

The Thriving from Work Questionnaire User Manual is now available

Cal Halvorsen’s collaboration with the Karolinska Institute as a visiting researcher

Cal Halvorsen was at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden as a visiting researcher, from mid-March to late April, 2024. Cal worked with Daniel Falkstedt's research group within the Unit of Occupational Medicine to gain access to Swedish registry data to estimate the effects that self-employment in later life has on health and well-being. This ongoing work uses longitudinal and quasi-experimental methods to estimate these effects. Cal’s work was funded by a visiting researcher grant from Forte (the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare) and the Boston College School of Social Work.

Center Co-Director Glorian Sorensen will be a lecturer at a NIVA Education course, Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Organizational Interventions, focused on the development, implementation, and evaluation of organizational interventions to improve working conditions and employee health and well-being through changing the way work is organized, designed and managed. The course will be at Scandic Palace, Copenhagen, Denmark on September 3-5, 2024. Go here for more information and registration.

Erika Sabbath, Center Co-Director and lead of the Boston Hospital Workers Health Study, will present at the webinar Power of Policy for Healthcare Worker Well-being: What Does the Research Tell Us?, on September 26 at 1:00pm eastern. The webinar will also include a presentation from Sundus Siddique of CPH-NEW, followed by a discussion of public policy and organizational policies related to healthcare providers. Complete this registration form to receive more information and a zoom link.

Cal Halvorsen, Lead of our Center’s Outreach Core and the Older Workers’ Health and Well-being Study, will be the Keynote Speaker at the Madison County Public Health 3rd Annual Healthy Workforce Conference in Cazenovia, NY on October 8, 2024. The one-day conference is designed for workforce leaders to gain knowledge that advances overall worker health, with a focus this year on issues pertaining to multigenerational workforces. More information about the conference and registration is available here.

Erika Sabbath, Center Co-Director and Lead of the Boston Hospital Workers Health Study, is the Principal Investigator of the Study of OB-GYNs in Post-Roe America, a multi-state qualitative study that aims to understand and characterize US OB-GYNs’ perceptions of the personal and professional impacts of practicing under post-Dobbs abortion bans, and to identify and disseminate practices that support obstetrics and gynecology physicians’ professional well-being in a restrictive policy environment. Investigators conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews from March-August, 2023 of 54 OB-GYNs in 13 states with near-total abortion bans. Grant funding is provided by the Greenwall Foundation.

Susan Peters, Center Associate Director and Lead of the Thriving Workers, Thriving Workplaces Study, is the Principal Investigator of the World Trade Center Non-Traditional Responders’ Employment and Mental Health Study. This study aims to identify how employment and working conditions have affected World Trade Center non-uniform responders’ mental health, well-being, and health behaviors since the 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) terrorist attack. Researchers will link longitudinal data collected from the WTC General Responder Cohort to new survey data collected from WTC non-traditional responders who are currently working. Grant funding is provided by the CDC and NIOSH.

Maren Voss, a Center research associate who is also working on the WTC Study mentioned above, leads the Thriving from Work: Assessment and Impact of Older Worker Preferences Study, working with Principal Investigator Susan Peters and Co-Investigator Cal Halvorsen. This project builds on existing survey tools to pilot a valid measurement approach to understanding older workers’ preferences as predictors of thriving from work and retention, and focuses on understanding worker preferences that can be addressed through workplace programs, policies, and practices. Funding is from the Harvard Education and Research Center Pilot Project Grant Program.

Sabbath, E.L., Arora, K.S., & Buchbinder, M. (2024, June 24). Supporting OB-GYNs in Abortion-Restrictive States—A Playbook for Institutions. JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.10270

Neidlinger, S.M., Peters, S.E., Gundersen, D.A., & Felfe, J. (2024, Jun 19). Thriving from work questionnaire: German translation and validation. BMC Pub Health, 24(1), 1634. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-19037-0

Sabbath, E.L., Pan, Y., McTernan, M.L., Peters, S.E., Lovett, S.M., Stelson, E.A., Wagner, G.R., Hopcia, K., & Boden, L.I. (2024 May 13). Adding injury to insult: unfair treatment at work and occupational injury among hospital patient-care workers. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1-10. doi:10.1002/ajim.23616

Peters, S.E., Gundersen, D.A., Neidlinger, S.M., Ritchie‐Dunham, J.L., & Wagner, G.R. (2024, April 27). Thriving from Work Questionnaire: Spanish translation and validation. BMC Public Health 24, 1187. doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18173-x

Peters, S.E., López Gómez, M.A., Hendersen, G., Martínez Maldonado, M., & Dennerlein, J.T. (2024, July). Feasibility of a capacity building organizational intervention for worker safety and well-being in the transportation industry: Pivoting to address the COVID-19 pandemic and social and political unrest in Chile. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 66(7), e272-e284. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000003112

The Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest has developed a recovery friendly workplace policy brief. Recovery friendly workplaces may reap the benefits of increased worker well-being, decreased turnover, increased productivity, and lower healthcare costs. This policy brief outlines the benefits of recruiting and retaining individuals in recovery, describes workplace policies, and highlights best practices to support workers in recovery.

The Oregon Healthy Workforce Center has developed an evidence-based training that helps managers support employees’ mental health. This one-hour online Workplace Mental Health Training for Managers teaches leaders and managers tangible skills to recognize the warning signs of mental health distress, learn appropriate ways to respond to workplace mental health concerns, learn practical strategies to reduce employee stress, and learn preventative strategies to support employees’ mental health.

Total Worker Health^® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Participation by the Center for Work, Health, and Well-being does not imply endorsement by HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.