School of Medicine

Research

The Division of Occupational and Environmental Health (DOEH) is involved in a range of externally-funded research. The overall focus for our research is to identify mechanisms by which the psychosocial, physical, and chemical environment, alone or in combination, impact our health and well-being. Our research is done in collaboration with a range of basic and applied science researchers at Wayne State University as well as with other institutions in the United States and internationally. Our research targets 4 major areas:

Sustained stress, health and performance:
The focus of this program is to determine how intense and sustained stress impacts our health, well-being and performance. We are currently involved in a series of research involving:

1. First responders including police, military, coast guard, INS, and EMS. These professionals are at high risk to develop trauma-induced mental and somatic health disorders, including cardiovascular disease, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The purpose is to identify high and low risk stressors and strategies to counteract adverse effects. In collaboration with the city of Detroit Department of Police we are evaluating the efficacy of an imagery-based stress and performance enhancement program aimed at decreasing stress-related disorders.  These projects are funded by NIH/NIMH and the Swedish Royal Foundation/"Kungafonden."
   
   
2. Post-migration risk- and resilience factors among refugees (funded by NIH/NIMH). The purpose with this 5-year project is to determine the importance of post-displacement/migration institutional factors, e.g., job and language training and job placement, in attenuating the health effects from the Iraqi wars and conflicts. This project is unique in that we also assess the interaction between complex pre- and post-displacement environmental exposures and refugee health and productivity.

Reproductive and health effects from environmental and psychosocial exposures in urban settings
Our major area of focus is:

1. Neurocognitive, reproductive, somatic and mental health effects from complex urban exposures. These studies are done in collaboration with researchers at Wayne State University's Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan as well as international researchers at European and Iraqi universities.
   
   
2. Health and behavior effects from hookah, waterpipe, smoking. Waterpipe smoking is spreading like wildfire across our urban centers around the globe. In some cities it is more common that young people smoke hookah rather than regular cigarettes. DOEH is a recognized leader in the study of risk factor for and prevalence of waterpipe smoking. We are especially concerned about smoking initiation among adolescents and the role hookah smoking might have as a gateway drug for heavier drug use.

Organizational and leadership determinants of safe, healthy & high performance knowledge industries
The platform for our evidence-based organizational enhancement research is the QWC- Quality-Work-Competence systems. This system is based on assessing over 600,000 employees in thousands of organizations. Based on the QWC assessments, a series of evidence-based interventions and advanced modeling, we are now able to target interventions to model-based and proven interventions focusing on enhancing employee health and organizational competitiveness.

1. In collaborative research with knowledge-based organizations representing both the private and public sectors, including academia and health care organizations, we determine leadership and organizational determinants of healthy and sustained high performance organizations. Our studies have resulted in the identification of concrete and malleable organizational and leadership factors that contribute to enhancing organizational efficiency by more than 20%. Furthermore, our research shows that many of these organizations have a slack of more than 40%. That is, employees themselves indicate the overall performance and quality could increase double-digit by means of proven intervention. For example, in a recent study of a world-renowned Big-Pharma company, our evidence-based interventions enhanced performance by 6 to 9%.
   
   
2. Another project under this umbrella is aimed at identifying causal organizational and leadership determinants of safe and healthy nursing homes. The purpose is to identify malleable factors contributing to high quality ratings in the Governmental Nursing home Compare database. We are especially interested in organizational climate determinants of safety culture and its relationships to costly, but potentially malleable, complications affecting nursing home residents. This work is carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Gerontology, Wayne State University. Funding has been provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation.
   
   
3. A third example of system-wide projects is our work with one of the country's larger university-hospital systems. Funded by NIH/NIOSH and done in collaboration with the hospital system, we have created an integrated database allowing for the identification of risk factors and high risk departments for inter-personal workplace violence as well as adverse events. The system is currently used to develop and, eventually, assess the efficacy of evidence-based intervention. The system is unique in that it allows for population-based analysis of adverse occupational events, including violence, to determine incidence rates, employees at risk, and to control for other factors that might impact the results of preventive measures.

Integrated wireless health assessment and management systems
DOEH, in collaboration with computer scientists, bioengineering, and systems researchers at Wayne State University, have developed  feasible and low-cost systems to assess stress and physiological health in real-time and in real life. Foremost, we are conducting two projects:

1. Sensor-based wireless assessment of stress, mental strain and performance in middle managers. This international collaborative study, competitively funded by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS) allows us to study in real-time and in real-life cardiovascular and mental health reactions in middle-age, as well as other populations of interest, female managers as they go about doing their job. The systems will allow for real-time interventions and split-second assessment of the efficacy of various interventions.
   
   
2. Wireless assessment and management of chronic disease patients. This study focuses on developing advanced, sensor-based systems for wireless assessment of cardiovascular health and its remote management in patients with severe cardiovascular disease, including heart failure. The project is done in collaboration with bioengineers, computer scientists and cardiologists. The purpose is to dramatically improve the long-term success rate and decrease costs in patients with severe cardiovascular as well as other disease.