RTI International Part of Team Chosen to Serve as One of 10 NIOSH Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health®

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — The National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety has announced that UNC-Chapel Hill, in partnership with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, and UNC Greensboro, has been chosen to serve as one of 10 NIOSH Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health®.

Total Worker Health® is an approach for improving worker well-being by integrating policies and practices that reduce work-related hazards with those that enhance workplace supports and services.

The new Center, named Carolina Center of Excellence in Total Worker Health and Well-Being, allows UNC-Chapel Hill, RTI, and UNC Greensboro to champion Total Worker Health® research and interventions designed to benefit North Carolinians and other workers throughout the southeast region and country.

“It’s exciting that RTI has this opportunity to conduct research and outreach to improve worker well-being — especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created so many work-related challenges but also opportunities to rethink and improve our work lives,” said Dr. Jules Payne, the project lead at RTI.

Principal investigator Dr. Laura Linnan, Professor of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health commented, “We believe the Carolina Center for Total Worker Health and Well-Being is positioned to serve as a catalyst for conducting important research and translating results into practice and policy-based changes that support worker health in North Carolina, the southeast region of the United States and nationally in the years to come.”

The first two projects funded as part of the Carolina Center will focus on two sets of essential workers: firefighters and healthcare providers.

For more information about Total Worker Health, visit cdc.gov/niosh/TWH.

To connect with Carolina Center leadership, contact Dr. Laura Linnan at linnan@email.unc.edu.