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Total Worker Health


Total Worker Health is a trademarked strategy defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being. It was conceived and is funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Total Worker Health is tested and developed in six Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health in the United States.

Total Worker Health is defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being.

Traditional occupational safety and health protection programs have primarily focused on ensuring that work is safe and that workers are protected from the harms that arise from work itself. Total Worker Health (TWH) builds on this approach through the recognition that work is a social determinant of health. Job-related factors such as wages, hours of work, workload and stress levels, interactions with coworkers, and access to leave and healthful workplaces all can have an important impact on the well-being of workers, their families, and their communities. TWH explores opportunities to not only protect workers, but also advance their health and well-being by targeting the conditions of work. Scientific evidence now supports what many safety and health professionals, as well as workers themselves, have long suspected—that risk factors in the workplace can contribute to health problems previously considered unrelated to work. For example, there are work-related risk factors for abnormal weight fluctuations, sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease, depression, and other health conditions. In recognition of these emerging relationships, the TWH approach focuses on how environmental, workplace factors can both mitigate and enhance overall worker health beyond traditional occupational safety and health concerns.

Total Worker Health originated from the Steps to a Healthier US Workforce symposium in October 2004, which sought to bring together knowledge and experience of health protection and health promotion, in order to stimulate action for the development of programs. The symposium developed around themes of research, practice and policy related to the integration of health protection and health promotion.


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