Small- and medium-sized businesses play a critically important role in N.C.’s economy. The coronavirus pandemic had a crushing impact on many of these businesses and their employees.
In response, the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center (NC OSHERC) within the Gillings School created a new study, Carolina PROSPER (Promoting Safe Practices for Employees’ Return), to assist businesses in staying open or re-opening safely while maintaining a healthy workforce. The study was funded by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory and is led by Gillings School Senior Associate Dean Laura Linnan, ScD, and Leena Nylander-French, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering and director of NC OSHERC.
Using a Total Worker Health® (TWH) approach, the team developed technical assistance on best practices that encouraged worker safety for participating businesses. This included testing workplace surfaces for coronavirus, encouraging healthy behaviors, maintaining employee mental health, implementing infection control, improving ventilation, addressing ergonomic factors and strengthening leadership approaches. Carolina PROSPER is one of the first efforts to implement a TWH approach to worker safety and health during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PROSPER team is continuing to consult with area businesses and has applied for additional funding. The team hopes to continue their work with new businesses in the future, take advantage of existing collaborations and forge new partnerships to be able to deliver evidence-based occupational safety and health resources and guidance to businesses locally and nationally.
