The RMCOEH is a vibrant, innovative and growing ERG that has been in existence at the University of Utah since 1977. It is the only ERC in Region VIII (UT, CO, WY, MT, ND, SD), although these states are in the top rankings for occupational fatalities and thus have an urgent need for more OSH professionals. In the past grant period, we have made major progress, including major legislation supporting the RMCOEH, along with experiencing growth in extent and quality of all of our programs. The RMCOEH has academic programs in OMR, IH, HSAT, E&S and OIPRT and has over 150 full time, adjunct and other supporting faculty. We provide specific curricula by OHNs to teach the importance of Occupational Health Nursing to our trainees. We have growing CE and HST Programs training over 2,500 trainees per year. The RMCOEH enjoys unparalleled collaborative relationships with businesses, employee groups, governmental units, and other community organizations. These foster an atmosphere that facilitates state of the art training for OSH professionals for the 21st Century. These relationships also provide the external 'laboratories'to test research theories and develop the innovations to provide safer and healthier workplaces. We also have a highly active RMCOEH Advisory Board and a Center Executive Committee that are critical in advancing the RMCOEH's programs. The RMCOEH has the infrastructure to support the NORA, r2p and other research missions. The RMCOEH's CE and Outreach programs promote and publicize efficacious strategies and help ensure that knowledge is translated into practice. Over the next five year period, we will emphasize: (1) increasing our existing academic programs (augmenting faculty numbers and external support), (2) utilizing this proposals three NORA research projects for trainee experiences and extramural proposal development, (3) further growing our extramural NORA research programs, (4) developing a post-doctoral training program, (5) further developing distance-based education programs, (6) redeveloping a Pilot/Small Projects Program, (7) re-starting our OHN Program, and increasing integration of the RMCOEH Statistical and Economic Evaluation Unit to help us achieve our goals. The three proposed NORA Projects serve major NORA research needs, involve innovative r2p aspects, while simultaneously involving literally every RMCOEH trainee.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 12 publications
