OEHS 7810 - Advanced Seminar in Occupational Health Psychology

This course is designed to cover in depth various occupational health psychology topics and can be taken numerous times with a different occupational health psychology topic. An example of one of these topics is Total Worker Health. Students will learn about the current Total Worker Health® approach to creating safe and healthful work environments. This perspective emphasizes integrating traditional controls to protect workers from injury and occupational illness with protections and supports to advance well-being and health. The first priority within this perspective is to identify workplace hazards and implement interventions to eliminate or control them. However, this expanded perspective also encourages workplace enhancements that foster worker health and well-being. An additional theme of the course is research-to-practice. In this regard, readings include scientific and practical topics focused on research and application within a specific high-risk industry, including the industry’s significant hazard exposures and safety/health consequences for workers. A Portland-area safety and health professional may provide a guest lecture. Topics will include Total Worker Health (TWH) and the hierarchy of controls, occupational safety and health professions, legislation and safety/health systems (e.g., OSHA, workers’ compensation, health care), hazard assessment and communication (physical, chemical, and psychosocial hazards), labor-management relations, social justice and occupational health, engineering and job/system design controls (including shiftwork), ability controls (personnel selection, training, and coaching), and motivational controls (e.g., leadership, worker choice/discretion, “nudge” environmental changes, feedback, incentives), and social validity of interventions.