What is Total Worker Health®?
Total Worker Health® is defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being.
The Total Worker Health (TWH) approach advocates for a holistic understanding of the factors that contribute to worker well-being. Scientific evidence now supports what many safety and health professionals, as well as workers themselves, have long suspected—that risk factors in the workplace can contribute to health problems previously considered unrelated to work.
What is Total Worker Health?
Keeping workers safe is the foundation upon which a TWH approach is built. Total Worker Health integrates health protection efforts with a broad spectrum of interventions to improve worker health and well-being.
Research Program
The NIOSH Office for Total Worker Health supports research activities, both intramural and extramural, that effectively integrate workplace interventions that protect workers’ safety and health with activities that advance their overall well-being.
Publications and Reports
The research supporting a Total Worker Health approach is still emerging, but strengthens every year. This page includes two collections of publications tailored to the diverse needs of our stakeholders.
Tools: Let's Get Started!
This page serves as a guide for practitioners for creating or expanding organizational cultures of safety, health and well-being.
- Page last reviewed: November 6, 2015
- Page last updated: August 16, 2016
- Content source:
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Office of the Director
TOTAL WORKER HEALTH ® is a registered trademark of the US Department of Health and Human Services