Outreach, Education, Dissemination, and Implementation
Aside from research, OHWC is actively engaged in making our work accessible to practitioners and organizations who could benefit from implementing Total Worker Health-Informed and evidence-based practices. Our work is closely informed by that of our regional stakeholders who help us understand the needs of workers across industries and with whom we partner to share our resources.
Below, we provide examples of activities within each of our four goals: Outreach, Education, Dissemination, and Implementation.
We develop stakeholder partnerships and collaborative opportunities for moving Total Worker Health-based practices into action.
- Presence at regional and national academic, safety, and HR/wellness/benefits conferences. Click to see an example.
- Partnership with stakeholder and worker groups such as ASSP, Safe From Hate Alliance, and Oregon Total Worker Health Alliance.
- Social media outreach: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
We create educational opportunities geared toward building capacity for Total Worker Health research and practice.
- Occupational Health Psychology Summer Institute: Hosted by OHWC every other year, each three-day Summer Institute is geared toward highlighting specific topics and sharing current research around a specific theme.
- Bi-Annual symposia: This long-standing one-day event shines light on pressing topics and is geared toward providing practitioners with recommended practices.
- Total Worker Health Alliance curriculum for practitioners: An example of what we can accomplish by joining forces with our partners, the Total Worker Health Curriculum is a landmark effort of the Oregon Total Worker Health Alliance, geared toward building capacity among practitioners to implement the Total Worker Health approach within their organizations. Click to learn more.
- Total Worker Health® Advancing Worker Well-being in the Workplace: A continuing education program for occupational health and safety professionals, this online course is offered by the University of Washington's Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety in collaboration with OHWC, Portland State University Occupational Health Psychology program, and the Total Worker Health (TWH) Program. Learn more here and download a flyer.
- Fundamentals of Occupational Health for Nurses: Geared toward practicing nurses and nurse practitioners, recent nursing graduates, current nursing students, and nurses in Washington State, this online course includes a Total Worker Health component and brings together content from an expert line-up of faculty and practicing professionals in an online, on-demand format that includes video lectures, inter- active activities, and case-based problem solving in order to increase competency of nurses and other healthcare providers with occupational health responsibilities. The program is designed to familiarize practicing nurses with occupational injuries and illnesses and the tools and resources to recognize, diagnose, treat, and report them in Washington. Learn more here and download a flyer.
We create and disseminate educational and evidence-based resources that organizations can implement.
- YourWorkpath: A one-stop online repository for download-ready educational and evidence-based resources. Learn about the type of resources we offer.
- Academic and popular media publishing: Visit our Center Accomplishments to review our publications.
- What’s Work Got To Do With It? Podcast: This has been a fun way to explore how work and life outside of work are connected and to highlight the public health relevance of work. Each episode, we host guests who share their work and experiences in the area of occupational safety and health.
- Oregon and the Workplace blog: Features the work of scientists, staff, and the outreach team at OHWC and our home, the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences.
- Dissemination lessons for scientists: At OHWC, we engage in continued learning to become adept at dissemination and as part of this, we host internal bi-monthly workgroups focused on a specific topic pertinent to dissemination.
A key goal of OHWC’s collective efforts is to move research to practice (R2P) and to this end, we make sure our resources are well-positioned for real-world implementation within organizations.
- YourWorkpath program: An invitation to organizations to implement our toolkits for a year in exchange for feedback that would inform our future work. These are the type of resources we offer.
- We are thrilled to report R2P successes in our work such as COMPASS adoption by the Oregon Home Care Commission, SHIP adoption as a “leadership project” by SAIF. Scroll to the Why We Love What We do section on this page.
- We are piloting a model that will allow us to provide coaching and strategic planning consultation for organizational leaders and practitioners who are interested in implementing Total Worker Health strategies and toolkits within their organizations.