Dr. John Staley is committed to researching and promoting occupational safety and health while highlighting efforts to improve worker well-being.
John Staley, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering, leads many of the occupational safety and health activities at the Gillings School.
Looking back now, Staley pinpoints three pivotal moments that brought him to this work. First was realizing as a young child that he wanted to have a job that would help people. Second was having his family home destroyed by a fire when he was a teenager and, as a result, forming relationships with firefighters and learning about the hazards and health risks inherent in their work. Finally, an accident occurred at an organization where Staley was working as an environmental scientist early in his career.
The accident happened when a teenage intern was working with a hazardous chemical and almost died from inhalation of the substance. The intern hadn’t been trained on how to handle the chemical and was not under supervision at the time of the accident.
“This accident really opened my eyes to the importance of workplaces having safety practices and policies, and it led me to a career focused on occupational safety and health,” said Staley.
Today, Staley serves as deputy director of the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center (NC OSHERC) and co-director of the outreach core at the Carolina Center for Healthy Work Design and Worker Wellbeing.
“John Staley epitomizes the highly skilled and well-rounded occupational health and safety practitioner, educator and researcher,” said Leena Nylander-French, PhD, director of NC OSHERC and co-director of the pilot research programs at the Carolina Center, whom Staley describes as his mentor. “He has unique skills to make occupational health and, particularly, safety super interesting. He can explain complex contexts and issues in plain language to drive his message when working with student and worker populations. It has been such a pleasure to work with him these past four years, and I am looking forward to the new ideas he has enunciated coming to fruition. We are very fortunate to have John at the NC OSHERC, Carolina Center and at UNC-Chapel Hill educating our students and occupational health and safety practitioners, and protecting the population at-large.”
“This accident really opened my eyes to the importance of workplaces having safety practices and policies, and it led me to a career focused on occupational safety and health.”
The NC OSHERC team is primarily focused on educating trainees. Both masters and doctoral students in the Gillings School receive training at the center, as well as students from programs at NC State and Duke University. The center also offers continuing education to professionals.
The Carolina Center for Healthy Work Design and Worker Wellbeing is primarily focused on conducting research to identify vulnerable worker populations and develop practices, programs and policies that can help keep their workplaces healthy. Both NC OSHERC and the Carolina Center are funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as centers for worker excellence and Total Worker Health®.
Total Worker Health® is a comprehensive approach that seeks to put practices and programs into place that improve worker health overall, and it’s been a major focus of Gillings School researchers like Laura Linnan, ScD, senior associate dean and professor of health behavior. It stands in contrast to the “do no harm” approach to occupational safety and health that merely aims to avoid injuries while at the workplace.
“Most of us are going to spend half of our lives or more in the workplace,” said Staley. “Work itself is a social determinant of health, so opportunities to both protect workers while they are at work and do things to protect workers’ overall health and well-being are a win for everyone — workers, communities and employers.”
Much of Staley’s work is focused on partnering with industry and various workplaces to see best practices implemented. He views himself as a bridge between the school’s research activities and the workers and businesses that need the information.
The Carolina PROSPER project, which sought to promote safe practices for employees returning to work during COVID-19, is an example of this partnership. Staley and team worked with 53 N.C. businesses to identify potential pathways for disease transmission in the workplace and developed recommendations for practices and policies for businesses and workplaces that could help protect employees.
The last several years have been significant for the research community focused on worker health and safety. The landscape of work changed rapidly during the pandemic, which highlighted issues like an aging workforce, the unique vulnerabilities of gig workers, and the ways that essential workers drive society and the economy.
“The future of work is a big topic right now,” said Staley. “As we strive to protect workers in the future, I hope we can continue the momentum we have experienced since 2020.”
