Integrating Employee Health : A Model Program for NASA

The American workforce is changing, creating new challenges for employers to provide occupational health services to meet the needs of employees.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) workforce is highly skilled and competitive and employees frequently work under intense pressure to ensure mission success.

The Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer at NASA requested that the Institute of Medicine review its occupational health programs, assess employee awareness of and attitude toward those programs, recommend options for future worksite preventive health programs, and ways to evaluate their effectiveness.

The committee's findings show that although NASA has a history of being forward-looking in designing and improving health and wellness programs, there is a need to move from a traditional occupational health model to an integrated, employee-centered program that could serve as a national model for both public and private employers to emulate and improve the health and performance of their workforces. Table of ContentsFront MatterExecutive Summary1 The NASA Worksite2 Occupational and Preventative Health at NASA3 Workforce Health, Performance, Readiness, Resilience: The Casefor Change4 Organizing and Managing Employee Integrated Health Programs andPolicies5 Implementing Integrated Health Programs6 Data Integration and Health ManagementAppendix A: Glossary of Terms and AbbreviationsAppendix B: Open Session and Workshop AgendasAppendix C: Committee Member Biographical Sketches