No job is just one thing. In our work landscape, are moving farther away from ultra-specialized roles. As we look toward the future of work, we need individuals that are interdisciplined.
Even in specialized roles in occupational safety and health (OSH), workplace leaders dedicated to protecting and promoting employee health need to understand how their decisions, roles, and responsibilities interact and impact the different disciplines within their organization and other aspects of the worker experience. These OSH professionals need to have a basic understanding of other specialties to be true masters of their own. They need interdisciplinary education.
The Mountain & Plains Education and Research Center (MAP ERC) is one of 18 centers funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The MAP ERC trains graduate students in six specialties of OSH, each of which requires that trainees participate in the Interdisciplinary Course. Now in its tenth year, this course follows a field consultation format, which allows students to develop specific occupational health and safety assessment, leadership, and communication skills.
Over the course of a semester, multi-disciplinary student teams, led by faculty mentors, meet with a community partner and conduct worksite field visits to evaluate safety and health protection and promotion programs and/or other occupational safety and health issues raised by the community partner. Students work together to assess the worksites, review relevant health and safety standards and policies, share discipline specific perspectives and theories, and provide recommendations that address methods to improve occupational safety and health.
Over the last 10 years, our trainees have partnered with more than 20 companies or organizations including:
“For many of our students, this might be their first opportunity to test their skills in the real-world with all the messiness that comes along with coordinating schedules, communicating with busy professionals, relying on limited resources, and dealing with complex problems requiring input from not only multiple OSH disciplines, but also workers and management. This course gives students a structured safe space to develop their leadership, communication, and teamwork skills that are essential to their future success,” said Mike Van Dyke, PhD, CIH, associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, director of interdisciplinary education at the Center for Health, Work & Environment, and interim department chair for the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health.
Out of this course, we hope our trainees will be able to function effectively on a multidisciplinary OSH team. From their projects they learn to communicate effectively with management, labor, and other allied OSH disciplines; identify health and safety hazards of worksite processes and their relationship to health outcomes; as well as demonstrate awareness of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
We asked our current trainees about the impact this course has had on their educational journey. They are the ones who will be entering workplaces across the state and country, helping to improve the health, safety and well-being of workers. What will they be taking with them?