Three Questions with L. Casey Chosewood, M.D.

What are some of the innovations you foresee in ergonomics and workplace safety in the coming year?

We see the future of work and health as both chock full of challenge and opportunity. Many employers are doing a better job of including workers in decision making. Worker centricity is key to business success today more than ever. There's more awareness of the connections between our work and our health — especially our mental health and stress-related conditions. However, the well-being of workers still faces an unparalleled assault from tech-driven change and an ever-changing economy. New work demands, shifting working conditions and arrangements, and other threats to workers' well-being continue to emerge. Many workers will be unable to adapt as quickly as technology and cultural shifts demand. These challenges will lead to higher levels of physical and mental fatigue; gaps in skills necessary for modern work; isolation and loneliness due to telework and remote work; the potential for harmful substance use and dependency; long work hours; and sleep disruption. We still see too-frequent gender-based, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities; and too many chronic diseases with high costs and associated disability. Meeting these challenges will require a renewed focus on understanding the pathways of workplace stressors and their connection to physical risks, injury, and psychosocial harms. Ergonomists who take a broad, systemic view of the connections between work and health are desperately needed to help guide workplaces through these changes.

What initiatives are you working on at NIOSH in 2024 to boost worker safety?

At NIOSH, we are now entering the third decade of Total Worker Health research, practice, policy, and capacity building. We are working to better define, measure, and operationalize the concept of well-being in the context of work and to optimize the multiple roles that workers hold on the job, within families, and in social and community settings. A macro-ergonomics approach will be helpful here. Our new measurement tool for worker well-being – the NIOSH Worker Well-being Questionnaire, or the WellBQ - will help identify workplace (no matter where work is done) and work elements that diminish (or enhance) health, leading to even better interventions to address these factors. Over the next decade as cumulative and representative data are generated, it is anticipated that the NIOSH WellBQ will evolve as its application expands to workplaces worldwide and the data it generates inform our understanding of worker well-being.

Our goals or the next decade broaden the scope of the current NIOSH TWH portfolio to address the changing world of work and the legacy and evolving challenges faced by workers. This expanded focus includes greater attention to the needs of working families, to strategies to foster meaningful work, to ensuring that jobs meet the needs of workers over the full working lifespan, and to creating tools for understanding how to improve human connections through work. A focus on performance and productivity —envisioned as a vital, sustaining asset to both workers and their organizations—will be essential in years to come. Organizations that have set a goal to comprehensively ensure the safety, health, and well-being of all their workers – on and off the job - will be the ones most likely to succeed.

How can a conference such as #AppliedErgo2024 serve to share best practices and fresh ideas in the ergo community?

Ergonomists are the utility players of occupational safety and health, with a huge scope of expertise and influence. Employers and workers rely on their expertise and their use of the integrated approach. Conferences like this one can help keep ergonomists' skills cutting-edge and ready to take on the many challenges sure to come. Our Total Worker Health solutions are also well-positioned to keep them primed to help tomorrow's workplaces succeed.

For more information about Dr. Chosewood and the other HSPI 2024 keynote speakers, go to the Keynote Speakers page .