Objective:There is growing interest in the NIOSH Total Worker Health® program, specifically in the process of designing and implementing safer, health-promoting work and workplaces. A Total Worker Health (TWH) Research Methodology Workshop was convened to discuss research methods and future needs.Methods:Twenty-six experts in occupational safety and health and related fields reviewed and discussed current methodological and measurement issues and those showing promise.Results:TWH intervention studies face the same challenges as other workplace intervention studies and some unique ones. Examples are provided of different approaches and their applications to TWH intervention studies, and desired developments in the TWH literature.Conclusions:This report discusses and outlines principles important to building the TWH intervention research base. Rigorous, valid methodologic, and measurement approaches are needed for TWH intervention as well as for basic/etiologic, translational, and surveillance research.

Medical practitioners and scholars are increasingly seeing the need for patient-centered care (PCC) which emphasizes both medical and emotional needs, patients' reasons for seeking care, and the enhancement of the patientÁprovider relationship. This ethnographic report examines the use of humor as a means to promote PCC within a hospital unit designed to encourage therapeutic humor. The three distinct themes emerging from this study have implications regarding the use of humor to help facilitate PCC. The three themes are (a) taking a complete patient profile, (b) freeing patients from the label of ''bad patient,'' and (c) de-emphasizing power disparities.

Type II diabetes affects Hispanic populations disproportionately and is the fifth leading cause of death for Hispanic people in the United States ( Smith & Barnett, 2005 ). Risk of diabetes is of great concern throughout the United States and is clearly of epidemic proportions for regions such as the Southwest and Texas where the primary minority populations are Mexican American. We conducted four focus groups with a total of 49 Hispanic participants (23 adults and 26 adolescents) from rural West Texas communities to gain insights about participants' eating habits, knowledge of diabetes, and potential barriers to preventive care. From the data, we identified a three-tiered predisposition or vulnerability to diabetes-heredity; preferences for unhealthy, culturally based food; and temptations from U.S. mainstream fast food culture. These vulnerabilities added to the sociocultural concerns that participants identified-importance of parental and familial modeling; challenges to healthy eating based on a culturally based diet and mainstream fast food culture; and a lack of support from the larger sociocultural networks such as teachers, community leaders, and the media. From these data, we have a better understanding of familial and sociocultural factors that need to be addressed in the development of preventive public awareness and educational plans. We outline implications for practitioners and educators from an integrated cultural biomedical approach.

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The productive aging framework provides a foundational and comprehensive approach for addressing the aging workforce.