OccHealthSci August 2025 Newsletter
- Shaun McGillis
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
The latest news, updates, and events from OccHealthSci
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Professional development
Total Worker Health® 101: The Basics
Tuesday, August 19 9:00 – 11:30 a.m. PDT Virtual workshop Cost: FREE Register to attend
The Total Worker Health (TWH) approach brings together policies, programs and practices that are essential for advancing worker safety, health, and well-being. In this introductory course, participants will learn about:
The terms and concepts essential to the TWH approach
The five defining TWH elements
Effective organizational implementation strategies of a TWH approach
Ways to develop applicable next steps
Continuing education credit through SHRM available upon completion of the training.
Total Worker Health®: Train the Trainer
Fridays, September 12 – October 10 10:00 – 12:00 p.m. PDT Virtual workshops Cost: FREE Register to attend the workshops
This interactive, eight-hour workshop series and engaging professional development course covers TWH core concepts, principles and practical resources that are essential for initial planning and implementation of the TWH approach in any organization or work setting. During this workshop series, participants can expect to:
Learn to effectively explain TWH related concepts and defining elements
Learn strategies to engage workers and strategies for gaining support across your organization or workplace
Contextualize the TWH basic training for a variety of audiences
Become part of the TWH learning community
Workshop series requirements:
Previous completion of the TWH 101: The Basics course offered by the Oregon TWH Alliance
Commitment to attending all four virtual sessions
Completion of a practical assignment.
SHRM continuing education credits are available upon completion.
Total Worker Health® Awareness for Safety Committees
Monday, September 15 3:00 – 4:15 p.m. PDT At the 2025 Central Oregon Health & Safety Conference Conference registration required Cost: Conference registration fees Learn more and register to attend
This workshop helps participants broaden their understanding of all types of hazards, including psychosocial and organizational hazards, which are not always easy to recognize. Participants have an opportunity to learn about bringing a comprehensive view of hazards to your committees using the TWH approach. This approach has been widely recognized and successfully implemented in workplaces across industries. Participants will learn how current safety committees’ activities might relate (or not) to the TWH approach and discuss some of specific employee engagement and supportive supervision solutions to advance health, safety, and well-being at work more effectively.
Workplace Stress/burnout: What Health and Safety Professionals Can Do
Monday, September 15 1:00 – 2:15 p.m. PDT At the 2025 Central Oregon Health & Safety Conference Conference registration required Cost: Conference registration fees Learn more and register to attend
In this course, participants will learn practical ways to foster a supportive and psychologically safe work environment as part of your existing safety management practices. These include tools and resources you can bring to your workplace to create a healthier, more productive, and engaging environment where workers can thrive, positively affecting your organization’s performance.
OccHealthSci Sponsored Programs
Oregon Healthy Workforce Center
The Oregon Healthy Workforce Center (OHWC) announces a call for pilot research project proposals addressing Total Worker Health®. The goal of our Pilot Project Program is to support new and impactful research that advances the OHWC’s theme: Total Worker Health intervention effectiveness, translation, and outreach to advance safe and healthy work design. The deadline for submitting proposals is September 15, 2025. Learn more about the proposal process.
The OHWC congratulates Drs. Leslie Hammer, Jennifer Dimoff, Cynthia Mohr and Shalene Allen who received the award for best occupational health science paper at the 2025 Work, Stress and Health Conference in Seattle, Washington. The research team won the award for their paper “A Framework for Protecting and Promoting Employee Mental Health through Supervisor Supportive Behaviors.”
Occupational Public Health & OR-FACE Programs
The Oregon Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (OR-FACE) Program recently published its 2023 Occupational Fatalities in Oregon Annual Report. In 2023, OR-FACE recorded 70 fatal occupational incidents resulting in worker deaths. This number represents a rate of 3.36 fatalities per 100,000 employed workers in the civilian labor force in Oregon. The national worker fatality rate in 2023 was 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. The OR-FACE Program has also updated its incident maps to reflect fatalities through 2023. There are three incident maps: incidents categorized by event, industry, and occupation. In addition to updating the incident maps, the incident abstracts have been updated to reflect fatalities through 2023.
The OR-FACE Program is excited to announce the Oregon Yarding and Loading Safety Training is now available in both English and Spanish. This free, online, self-guided training was adapted from the Oregon OSHA Yarding and Loading Handbook and is intended to supplement the essential training offered by employers. Designed for those working in the logging industry, this online training covers essential topics such as types of yarding systems, recommendations for rigging, procedures for rigging crews, and more.
Learn more about OR-FACE, including our fatality investigations and toolbox talks, by visiting our website. To download and receive new publications including investigative reports and other OR-FACE publications, please join our mailing list.
OccHealthSci Research, Blog and Events
Stay up to date on the latest basic, clinical, and applied research at OccHealthSci, and learn about our partnerships and community engagement at the Oregon and the Workplace blog.
Research briefs
Sex differences in the relationship between self-selected sleep-wake timing and morning cardiovascular risk in midlife adults
A research team led by OccHealthSci Associate Professor, Saurabh Thosar studied 24 healthy adults and discovered a surprising connection between sleep timing and heart health. It turns out that when you naturally wake up early, it matters to your heart—but the impact differs between men and women. Read the paper and watch the video below to learn more.
How Leadership Training Could Transform Military Mental Health
Under the leadership of Professor Leslie Hammer, researchers at OccHealthSci and Portland State received a Department of Defense grant to develop a training program to help leaders in the National Guard support their troops' mental health and well-being. Learn more about this project.
Understanding the Relationships Between Cannabis Use and Sleep Disruption
Under the direction of Assistant Professor Nicole Bowles, researchers at OccHealthSci begin a five-year, multi-million-dollar NIH grant to study cannabis use and sleep disruption. Learn more about Dr. Bowles’ project.
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