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

Happy Holidays from the Center for Work, Health, & Well-being!

Thriving from Work Questionnaire translated into Spanish

A translated and validated Spanish version of our Thriving from Work Questionnaire is now available to download from our website, in addition to the 30-item long version and the eight-item short version in English, and a frequently asked questions resource. The Thriving Workers, Thriving Workplaces Study seeks to identify how working conditions and worker characteristics are associated with workers’ thriving across sectors.

Please contact Dr. Susan Peters for information about using questionnaire items in your organizational assessment or research study.

SAIF's Worker well-being in five easy steps, developed with our Center

Center researchers collaborated with SAIF, Oregon’s not-for-profit workers’ compensation insurance company and a TWH Affiliate, to take key aspects of our Center’s Implementation Guidelines and streamline the information to create Worker well-being in five easy steps, an online suite of Total Worker Health videos, tip sheets, and resources for SAIF consultants to use with their small- and medium-sized clients.

This resource is available to the public in English and in Spanish, and can be found by going to SAIF’s Worker well-being in five easy steps on our website.

Webinar available: Accelerate health outcomes at your organization with Total Worker Health^® 

In collaboration with TWH Affiliate HealthPartners of Minnesota, the Center developed an educational webinar providing a step-by-step explanation of a TWH organizational approach to addressing worker safety, health, and well-being. The webinar and corresponding action planning worksheet guide participants as they identify working conditions in their organizations that could be improved, consider root causes of these working conditions, and start the action planning process to address them.

The webinar is available on our website, as is the Center's Guidelines for Implementing an Integrated Approach.

Recent Publication: Can Better Leadership Reduce Nursing Home Staff Turnover? 

Our Center’s study using our Workplace Integrated Safety and Health (WISH) Assessment was highlighted in the November issue of NIOSH’s Research Rounds. This study measured working conditions at Nursing Homes in California, Massachusetts, and Ohio, and looked at how reducing high turnover among nursing staff may improve patients’ health outcomes. The researchers found that nursing homes with leadership that communicated and demonstrated commitment to worker safety, health, and well-being had relatively fewer nurses leave during the study period, with turnover rates approximately 10% lower than homes without these leadership characteristics.

Publication: Williams J; Collins JE; Gandhi A; Yu H; Boden L; Katz J; Wagner G; Sorensen G. Can Better Leadership Reduce Nursing Home Staff Turnover? J Am Med Dir Assoc 2023 June 22; ISSN 1525 8610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2023.05.021



NIOSH’s Impact Wellbeing: Addressing the Mental Health Crisis of our Nation's Health Workers 

A recent CDC Vital Signs report shows that U.S. health workers continue to face a mental health crisis, experiencing greater declines in mental health measures compared with other workers. To help address this crisis, NIOSH has launched Impact Wellbeing, based on TWH principles, to support hospital leaders in meeting these challenges at the operational level to improve the well-being of our nation’s health workforce. Its design will help leaders to focus on the organizational factors contributing to the worsening mental health of their healthcare workers.

Improving Quality of Health Care at Home: New Tools for Aides and Clients

Home care workers and their clients are benefitting from free educational resources available from UMass Lowell and their partners. The UMass Lowell team, led by public health professor emeritus Margaret Quinn (who is also a member of our Center’s External Advisory Board) and collaborators produced materials based on the results of survey research which identified practices of industry professionals and evaluated home care environments. These resources are available on the Safe Home Care and Hospitals website, and aim to improve the safety and well-being of clients and home care workers.

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, & Well-being does not imply endorsement by HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.