2009 Annual Meeting

A collection of images of older workers

Conference Final Report
Video of Aging Workers Conference Highlights
Final Program

Continuing Education Credits for this activity is pending. Please see Final Announcement for details. Registration for the credits will be provided on-site at no cost.

FEBRUARY 17-18, 2009 | NATIONAL LABOR COLLEGE, SILVER SPRING, MD
Healthy Aging for Workers:
Anticipating the Occupational Safety and Health Needs of an Increasingly Aging Workforce

Conference Goals

  • Make the impact of work on older workers part of the national policy and research agenda
  • Understand policy and program needs and research gaps to reduce the impact of chronic diseases on aging workers and increase the ability of individuals to work as they age
  • Understand workplace programs and policies that reduce the adverse impact of work-related risk on older workers
  • Refine the research agenda proposed in the 2004 National Academy of Science (NAS) Report on the Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers
  • Develop near-term intervention strategies (focus on primary prevention) for preventing work-related injury and illness associated with a growing workforce of aging workers
  • Attend to the special case of healthy aging of construction workers and others involved in hard physical labor.

This conference aims to refine the research agenda proposed in the 2004 National Academy of Science (NAS) Report on the Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers and to develop near-term intervention strategies for preventing work-related injury and illness associated with a growing workforce of aging workers. Since older workers may be increasingly vulnerable to age-related job discrimination, efforts to uncover new work-related injury and illness among an aging population must be done with care. Developers of thoughtful research agendas and intervention strategies in this area must strive to protect workers’ health and safety as well as their jobs. Recommendations developed during this meeting will be in the context of NIOSH’s NORA health disparities, which includes aging workers, NIOSH’s research to practice initiative, NIOSH’s WorkLife Initiative and the US Public Health Service’s “Healthy People – 2010” objectives for the nation.

Who should participate?

Participants will include occupational safety and health clinicians and practitioners and experts on aging, worker and employer representatives, federal government officials and staff and members of the US Congress interested in and responsible for aging and workforce protection issues and policies.

This conference is made possible by funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, grant no. 1 R13 OH00 9206-01 (NCTE) and the CPWR – Center for Construction Research and Training through NIOSH Cooperative Agreement OH008307. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CPWR or NIOSH.

© All photos courtesy of Earl Dotter