# Shaping the Future to Ensure Worker Health and Well-being: Shifting paradigms for Research, Training and Policy

> **NIH ALLCDC U13** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON · 2021 · $45,869

## Abstract

Worker well-being emphasizes quality of life, driven by the relationship between individual
worker health and factors both at and outside the workplace, seeking to have workers thrive and
achieve their full potential. In occupational safety and health (OSH), setting worker well-being as
an outcome implies a paradigm shift beyond the prevention of workplace illness and injury or
health promotion. Embracing this paradigm shift requires a more expansive, systems-thinking
approach, to better integrate “traditional” OSH, personal and socioeconomic risk factors, both
horizontally and vertically. The paradigm will likely affect how we conduct OSH research, train
the future OSH professional workforce, and design forward-thinking policies to maximize worker
health and well-being. Over a three-year period, this U13 Cooperative Agreement with NIOSH
will contribute to this public discourse in a major way through a series of conferences and
dissemination activities that bring together a broad, interprofessional audience that includes, but
goes beyond employers, workers and the academic community, focusing on the three critical
areas of research, training and policy/application. The overriding theme is the paradigm shift
in focus for OSH. The activities will consist of a combination of topic-specific workshops in
Year 1, centered on examining workforce changes in coming years, training needs and
research methods and measures in worker well-being. These activities will be preparatory to the
celebration of a large, multi-day international, interprofessional conference in Year 2, structured
along the three areas of research, training, and policy/application. This conference, held in
Houston, will feature national and international keynote speakers, concurrent sessions,
discussion forums, case studies and poster communications following an international call for
abstracts. In Year 3 there will be another round of workshops, on themes and needs emanating
from the Year 2 conference. In addition to the scientific gatherings, other outputs from each
year of the project will include dissemination of findings in both the scientific and lay media,
development of resources for employers and workers, and the compilation of distribution lists of
interested participants as an important step in the establishment of a broad stakeholder network
to continue pushing the agenda forward. Each year of the project will undergo both process
and outcome evaluations under the general framework of the logic model. This proposal
supports the NIOSH Strategic Plan 2019 – 2023, and is relevant to all 10 Sector Programs,
especially the Healthy Work Design Cross-Sector Program, and the Safe Skilled Ready
Workforce and Occupational Health Equity Core and Specialty Programs.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10215225
- **Project number:** 5U13OH011870-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON
- **Principal Investigator:** GEORGE L DELCLOS
- **Activity code:** U13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $45,869
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10215225

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10215225, Shaping the Future to Ensure Worker Health and Well-being: Shifting paradigms for Research, Training and Policy (5U13OH011870-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10215225. Licensed CC0.

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