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

Wishing our friends and colleagues a happy and safe holiday season!

We are excited to share information about three recent publications, each making important contributions to the Total Worker Health literature.

This paper from the Fulfillment Center Intervention Study, led by Erin Kelly, presents the design and protocol of a cluster-randomized control trial aiming to improve psychological distress and well-being, and designed to provide a channel for workers to voice their concerns, implement solutions, and track workplace changes that matter to them. The findings from this study will deepen the scholarly understanding of participatory workplace interventions and their effects on worker health and well-being, while also establishing new evidence about feasible changes to support workers in fulfillment centers, an important and growing industry.



Kelly EL, Siebach KF, DeHorn G, Lovejoy M. The Fulfillment Center Intervention Study: Protocol for a Group-Randomized Control Trial of a Participatory Workplace Intervention. PLOS ONE 2024 July 18;19(7): e0305334. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305334

Center Co-Director Erika Sabbath and her colleagues, as part of a Center affiliated project, Study of OB-GYNs in Post-Roe America, published recommendations for supporting OB-GYNs in abortion-restrictive states so these healthcare providers might feel more confident and supported to practice ethical medicine in abortion-restrictive policy climates. The authors suggest that by adopting the recommendations shared in their publication, institutions in abortion-restrictive states can take active steps to support and retain their reproductive health workforce.



Sabbath EL, Arora KS, & Buchbinder M. Supporting OB-GYNs in Abortion-Restrictive States—A Playbook for Institutions. JAMA. 2024, June 24. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.10270

The Center is pleased to be mentoring PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, including:

Felipe Muñoz Medina, PhD, is at the Center for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Santiago, Chile. His work with Susan Peters, Center Associate Director and Lead of the Thriving Workers, Thriving Workplaces Study, focuses on understanding how psychosocial conditions of work influence worker well-being, and the relationship between worker well-being and enterprise outcomes using longitudinal data.

Ricardo Diego Suárez Rojas, a PhD candidate at the Boston College School of Social Work, is conducting a study funded by a Harvard ERC Pilot Project Grant, “Characterizing Experiences of Workplace Violence among Hospital Patient Care Employees”. He is working with Erika Sabbath, Center Co-Director and Project Lead for the Center’s Boston Hospital Workers Health Study. The analysis focuses on narratives written by workers (2019-2024) to report experiences of assault occurring in the workplace. 

The Center’s Thriving from Work Questionnaire, a measure of work-related well-being, was included in the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey (PH WINS), being conducted by the de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. The Fall/Winter 2024 data collection marks the fourth time the government public health workforce will be surveyed to capture public health workers’ demographics and perspectives on key issues related to their work. The collected data will be available to Center researchers for analysis after Spring 2025 and will provide insights on the well-being of the U.S. public health workforce.

Cal Halvorsen, Lead of the Center’s Older Workers’ Health and Well-being Study and Co-Lead of the Outreach and Dissemination Core, has been appointed as an associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Cal was also recently awarded a visiting scholar grant to spend 10 weeks at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in the summer of 2025. Funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare, this grant will support Cal’s work with a multidisciplinary and international team of scholars at the Karolinska Institute, one of the world’s leading medical universities.

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.