Research
Research and program areas
The Oregon institute of Occupational Health Sciences, has 4 main research themes or directions that respond to our mission. In addition, the institute has an Outreach program. Read more about each area below.
OccHealthSci and Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC) faculty and staff are developing, testing, and disseminating programs that integrate occupational safety, health, and well-being by addressing organizational factors like work safety practices, effective supervision, and employee lifestyles. This includes vulnerable workers, including young workers, agriculture workers and solitary workers or workers have special issues that may contribute disproportionately to Workers' Compensation costs. Institute scientists are developing unique programs to address their needs and prevent adverse consequences.
Our researchers working in this area include (click on their name to read more about their research):
Adequate sleep is not only essential for our safety and productivity but also for our overall well-being and health. At the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences, we are developing a research program to study common sleep problems and to implement solutions, ranging from screening for and treating sleep disorders, educating communities and workforces about 'sleep health', to implementing interventions designed to improve sleep, safety, productivity and overall health in the workplace.
Our researchers working in this area include (click on their name to read more about their research):
Our researchers are using cutting edge science to characterize the adverse effects of occupational exposures, determine the mechanisms by which these exposures produce adverse effects, and apply that information to develop specific worker training and other innovative strategies to help prevent the exposures in the first place and to reduce the adverse consequences if exposures do occur.
Our researchers working in this area include (click on their name to read more about their research):
Physical injury is the largest contributor to workers' compensation costs in Oregon. To reduce this burden on worker wellness and productivity, our scientists are conducting innovative research on the causes, treatment, recovery and prevention of workplace injuries.
Our researchers working in this area include (click on their name to read more about their research):
We provide resources and educational opportunities on relevant and emerging workplace safety and health issues. We're also improving the health, safety, and well-being of workers through effectiveness research, collaboration with partner organizations, and dissemination of evidence-based programs.
Our researchers working in this area include: (Click on their name to learn more about their research).
Nichole Guilfoy, BS
Dede Montgomery, MS, CIH
Anjali Rameshbabu, PhD
Helen Schuckers, MPH
Faculty lab pages
- Circadian Rhythms
- Sleep
- Suprachiasmatic Nucleus
- Circadian rhythms
- Sleep
- Sex differences
- Total Worker Health
- Social determinant of health
- Workplace interventions
- Genome Instability and Cancer
- DNA Repair
- Environmental Exposures
- Inactivity and exercise physiology
- vascular function assessment
- cardiovascular disease research
- Total Worker Health (TWH)
- TWH interventions
- Human behavioral neurotoxicology
- Occupational Stress,
- Supervisor Supportive Training
- Workplace Interventions
- Neurodegeneration
- Alzheimer's diseases
- Drosophila
- Safety and health interventions
- Total worker health
- Lone workers
- Biological effects of ionizing radiation
- Space radiation
- Mutagenesis
- Stress
- Sleep
- Cannabinoids
- Safety Climate,
- Total Worker Health,
- Safety Culture
- Environmental mutagenesis
- DNA repair
- Drug discovery
- Sleep
- Circadian Rhythms
- Adverse health effects of shift work
- Chromatin features of inducible genes
- Transcriptional memory
- Gene x environment interactions in epigenetic patterning