Community Outreach

The Division of Occupational Health and Safety (DOHS), Community Out-Reach Program has adopted the concept of Employee Health Awareness and Promotion. The program strives to improve healthy behaviors and prevent or reduce employee work related injuries and illnesses through proactive occupational health and safety education out-reach initiatives; therefore, the below team-based initiatives, coupled with health awareness and promotion information have been compiled to provide NIH employees a new pathway for a healthier and safer workforce.

As outlined in the conclusions of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Guidance Statement, JOEM, Volume 53, Number 6, June 2011, Workplace Health Protection and Promotion, “Traditionally, health protection and health promotion activities have operated independently in the workplace. Health protection has usually been viewed as encompassing the activities that protect workers from occupational injury and illness—ranging from basic safety training to the use of protective gear and safety-enhancing modifications to equipment. Health promotion, by contrast, has usually been viewed as encompassing the activities that maintain or improve the personal health of a workforce—ranging from health risk assessments to wellness initiatives and immunizations."

The creation of workplace “silos” that place boundaries around these activities has been a limiting factor in organizations’ ability to develop truly integrated health initiatives, reducing their overall effectiveness. While we have made great strides in creating a culture of safety and health protection in the United States since the establishment of OSHA 40 years ago and have made encouraging progress in establishing a culture of wellness and health promotion in more recent decades, the two have yet to meet and merge into a true “culture of health.”

A new way of approaching these two vital activity centers is needed—one that will integrate them into a concept called “workplace health awareness and promotion.” This is the path to creating a sustainable culture of health.

Simply defined, workplace health awareness and promotion is the strategic and systematic integration of distinct environmental, health, and safety policies and programs into a continuum of activities that enhances the overall health and well-being of the workforce and prevents work-related injuries and illnesses.

Organizations, whether large or small, can engage in this new strategy by systematically integrating their health promotion and safety programs, policies, and processes. This includes implementing programs that recognize the interactions of safety, environment, and health; creating a climate in which employees believe that an organization cares about their health and safety; building a culture in which a health and safety mindset becomes a “24/7” way of thinking; and promoting an off-the-job health and safety focus that becomes as important as, and overlaps with, the on-the-job health and safety focus.

By extending this concept in this way—taking it beyond the walls of the workplace and connecting it with other health promotion initiatives in the home and community—workplace health awareness and promotion can contribute tangibly to a stronger overall national health care system and improved health outcomes for the population in general.”

Community Outreach

Occupational

Physical

Nutritional

Emotional

Social

DOHS Community Out-Reach Teams