Abstract
Total Worker Health® (TWH), an initiative of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related health and safety hazards by promoting efforts that advance worker well-being. Interventions that apply the TWH paradigm improve workplace health more rapidly than wellness programs alone. Evidence of the barriers and facilitators to the adoption, implementation, and long-term maintenance of TWH programs is limited. Dissemination and implementation (D&I) science, the study of methods and strategies for bridging the gap between public health research and practice, can help address these system-, setting-, and worker-level factors to increase the uptake, impact, and sustainment of TWH activities. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a synthesis of existing D&I science literature to provide TWH researchers and practitioners with: (1) an overview of D&I science; (2) a plain language explanation of key concepts in D&I science; (3) a case study example of moving a TWH intervention down the research-to-practice pipeline; and (4) a discussion of future opportunities for conducting D&I science in complex and dynamic workplace settings to increase worker safety, health, and well-being.
Highlights
Total Worker Health® (TWH) is defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards by promoting efforts to advance worker well-being [1,2]
The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the Dissemination and implementation (D&I) literature to provide TWH researchers and practitioners with: (1) an overview of D&I science; (2) a plain language explanation of key concepts in D&I; (3) a case study example of moving a TWH intervention down the reseach-to-practice pipeline; and (4) future opportunites for D&I science in TWH
The aim of D&I is to gain an understanding of the contextual factors—including the needs and priorities of stakeholders at each level [119]—that facilitate and hinder the successful uptake of evidence-based interventions
Summary
The Total Worker Health® (TWH) approach from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), first arose in 2003. TWH is defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards by promoting efforts to advance worker well-being [1,2]. Interventions with a TWH focus have been demonstrated to improve workplace health effectively and more rapidly than wellness programs alone [3,4]. The Wellworks-2 intervention integrated an occupational safety. Health Programs: A Self-Study Guide; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Atlanta, GA, USA. B.B. Science of improvement versus science of implementation: Integrating both into clinical inquiry.
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