Ensuring Productivity in an Age of Aging Workers

July 9, 2013- The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) reports that between 2005 and 2030, the number of Americans aged 65 and older is expected to double, and a significant number of them will continue to work. This trend prompted the first Invitational Summit on Advancing the Health Protection and Promotion of an Aging Workforce, convened  in April, 2012, by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

In the May Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, ACOEM and NIOSH published their recommendations for ensuring aging workers' productivity by integrating health protection and health promotion programs into the workplace.

Highlights from the summit's recommendations include building greater awareness of aging issues among employers and policymakers; fostering a "culture of health" that better integrates worker safety and wellness programs; creating "age-friendly" programs and policies and developing new "job transitioning" models as capacities for work change over worker lifetime; using new standards for measuring the value of companies that factor in workforce health; and a call for more research into the investment value of health protection and health promotion in the workplace.

Read the full post here.

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