The Graduate Training Program in Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) at the University of Connecticut (UConn) recruits qualified graduate students in industrial/organizational psychology, nursing, public health, and occupational and environmental medicine for specialized training in occupational health psychology (OHP). The training goal is for these select students to become highly proficient at conducting multi-disciplinary research to benefit worker health and safety. Over the past six years, UConn has received, on average, approximately $60,000 per year from NIOSH to train these doctoral-level researchers. Trainees learn how to contribute to the OHP knowledge base and become highly capable at discovering or implementing new ways of maintaining and promoting worker health and safety. The training program follows a scientist-practitioner model in which trainees must complete 12-credits of prescribed course work, three credits of applied field or lab research under the supervision of OHP faculty, master- and dissertation-level research, and participate in faculty research labs. All trainees complete a graduate proseminar that covers principles of behavioral science, ergonomics and epidemiology and which requires development of a multidisciplinary research proposal, taught by core OHP faculty and also an epidemiologist from the School of Medicine. In addition, trainees complete a required epidemiology course and two elective graduate courses in psychology and/or public health that meet a required breadth requirement covering personnel/organizational psychology, human factors/ergonomics or public health. This combination of course content and applied research training is designed not only to equip trainees with the necessary skills to address today's occupational health problems, but also to enable them to introduce new concepts of work organization and workplace design that can enhance worker safety, health and productivity through proactive approaches to workplace interventions.
