National Center for Productive Aging and Work

Overview

The National Center for Productive Aging and Work promotes lifelong well-being for workers and encourages a productive aging workforce. The Center also strives to improve worker health by integrating traditional occupational safety and health protection techniques with emerging efforts to promote health and prevent disease. The Center is hosted by the NIOSH Office for Total Worker Health^®.

Background

Over the past 15 years, the topic of aging and its role in occupational safety and health has received considerable attention at NIOSH. As part of this effort, NIOSH, along with its partners, asked the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine to turn their attention to the older worker and to the interaction between work and the aging process. The National Academy's Committee published their findings in the 2004 Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers report.

The report summarizes conclusions and presents detailed recommendations pertaining to three major themes that emerge from examination of the health and safety needs of older workers:

1. Conducting informative research requires improved databases and data systems necessary to track the health and safety needs of older workers and the programs that address them.
2. Research is needed to provide better understanding of the factors that relate to the health and safety needs of older workers.
3. Research is needed to identify and clarify the aspects of policies, programs, and intervention techniques and strategies that are effective and that are not effective in addressing the health and safety needs of older workers.

In the intervening years, NIOSH researchers turned their attention to the issues that arise from the increasing proportion of the American workforce which is "chronologically gifted." Their work greatly advanced our knowledge of the health and safety risks for an aging workforce.

However, important questions remain, and there exists a considerable gap between what we know about the changes that accompany the aging process and what organizations are actually doing, and should be doing, to address these changes across all age groups.

Mission

• Develop Institute-wide research goals and leadership with regards to workers of all ages, as they age.
• Facilitate both intramural and extramural collaboration related to advancing research on the aging workforce.
• Further develop knowledge on interventions and best practices for creating an "aging-friendly" workplace from the physical, emotional, economic and labor relations perspectives.
• Develop and promote a broad range of products and resources that target workers, organizations, and sectors where aging issues are particularly salient.

Program priorities

The Center's priorities include researching the changing demographics of the workforce, developing interventions to support older workers, and promoting age-friendly workplace practices that benefit workers of all ages.

An important part of the Center's agenda is to identify goals that need to be addressed regarding aging-related research and the translation of those findings into useful information and guidance materials. NCPAW's work falls into the following three areas:

• Surveillance: Collect, analyze, and interpret health-related data to better understand factors related to productive aging. Surveillance helps describe the nature of occupational safety and health issues, identify priorities for research and intervention, and evaluate trends.
• Health Effects and Mechanisms of Aging: Identify and characterize mechanisms and health effects of workplace risk factors and protective factors for productive aging in workers across the working life.
• Evidence-based Practices and Interventions: Examine the effectiveness of interventions, communication tools, policies, and practices designed to support workers at different points across the working life.

These three areas have been integrated into the NIOSH Strategic Plan. Please check back as the Center develops specific goals in each of these three areas.

What we've accomplished

The Center has made significant strides in understanding the dynamics of the aging workforce. Accomplishments include comprehensive research studies, the development of guidelines for age-friendly workplaces, and the promotion of strategies that enhance the health and productivity of older workers.

What's ahead

Looking forward, NCPAW plans to further its research in the area of productive aging, develop more comprehensive strategies for age-friendly workplaces, and increase its outreach and impact on workplace policies and practices that support an aging workforce.

Contacts

Contact the program leaders at ncpaw@cdc.gov with any questions.

Resources