Dissemination and Implementation Science Approaches for Occupational Safety and Health Research: Implications for Advancing Total Worker Health

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.

Promising Occupational Safety, Health, and Well-Being Approaches to Explore the Future of Work in the USA: An Editorial

“…Guerin et al [37] examine D&I science for TWH researchers and practitioners, offering an overview of the literature; a plain language explanation of key concepts; a TWH researchto-practice case study example; and a discussion of future opportunities to increase worker safety, health, and well-being through D&I science.…”

Leveraging an Implementation Science Framework to Measure the Impact of Efforts to Scale Out a Total Worker Health® Intervention to Employers

“…Implementation strategies should be tailored to the local sociopolitical context [14]. In the case of TWH, it is common to identify organizations as a target setting for intervening to improve worker health, safety, and wellbeing and consider the unique needs these groups face [3,15]. Accordingly, implementation strategies are the methods by which certain core components are deployed to fit the varying priorities and needs of a business and its employees.…”

“…Over the past decade, NIOSH and TWH researchers have developed frameworks and tools, such as the research-to-practice (r2p) approach, to help employers translate TWH into practice across a range of organizational settings [2]. r2p has focused on translating interventions to workplaces; however, it does not necessarily focus on the systematic study of these processes, as is customarily undertaken by D&I researchers [3]. The state of science of moving TWH research into practice has begun to shift to the application of dissemination and implementation (D&I) methods to improve translation [3][4][5][6].…”

“…r2p has focused on translating interventions to workplaces; however, it does not necessarily focus on the systematic study of these processes, as is customarily undertaken by D&I researchers [3]. The state of science of moving TWH research into practice has begun to shift to the application of dissemination and implementation (D&I) methods to improve translation [3][4][5][6]. The advances and rapid changes across the workplace, work, and workforce require special attention to the identification of the barriers and facilitators to adoption and implementation of TWH interventions [3].…”

“…The state of science of moving TWH research into practice has begun to shift to the application of dissemination and implementation (D&I) methods to improve translation [3][4][5][6]. The advances and rapid changes across the workplace, work, and workforce require special attention to the identification of the barriers and facilitators to adoption and implementation of TWH interventions [3].…”