I am a trained professional in workplace health protection with specific expertise in safety leadership, safety climate and workers' compensation. My overall career goal is to expand my knowledge and skills on how organizational-level factors affect safety and health outcomes in small businesses across a range of industry sectors, with particular emphasis in the design and evaluation of interventions that enhance Total Worker HealthTM (TWH). My career development/training plans include training and education, mentoring, and research activities. Through these plans, I aim to become an expert in TWH systems (policies and programs) and how the TWH leadership practices of management, workers, and safety/health managers contribute to system development and effectiveness. My mentors, Dr. Lee Newman a Professor and Center Director of a NIOSH funded TWH Center of Excellence and Dr. Anna Baron a Professor of Biostatistics and Informatics, as well as my collaborator, Dr. Stefanie Johnson an Associate Professor of Management, will provide me with strong mentorship throughout this project. The central hypothesis of my research project is that small businesses adoption of TWH programs and policies and a positive change in organizational climates for safety and health will result in improvements in worker outcomes. My research project aims to (SA1) determine the predictive relationship between organizational level TWH systems, safety and health climates, and worker level health outcomes and (SA2) understand how small business leadership practices affect TWH system effectiveness. The employees participating in this project work for small businesses (<500 employees) that are prospective, serially enrolled Colorado businesses in the Small+Safe+Well research study that is part of the Center for Health Work & Environment's TWH Center of Excellence. I will use prospective, organizational- and employee-level data collected annually over a 24-month period to address SA1. I will complement SA1 with a qualitative investigation of how TWH leadership practices of management, workers, and safety/human resource managers influence TWH system effectiveness. The output of this career development project will be a greater understanding of the theoretical framework behind TWH and guidance on the mechanism by which organizational support for TWH programing impacts worker outcomes. Through this project, I will address several National TWH Agenda strategic goals: Activity/Output Goal 1.1.3, Activity/Output Goal 1.1.4, Activity/Output Goal 1.2.4, and Activity/Output Goal 3.1.3.
Work is a major social determinant of health. Through the aims of this project, I will generate knowledge with regards to how the context of work impacts worker health as well as the ways in which leadership practices may facilitate the effectiveness of workplace health protection and promotion policies and programs. Ultimately, I aim to promote the physical and mental health of workers and to reduce occupationally related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
