Projects


NATIONAL CENTRE FOR WORKPLACE HEALTH PROMOTION

Head: Elżbieta Korzeniowska, PhD
phone: (+48) 42 631 46 86
fax: (+48) 42 631 46 85
e-mail: whpp@imp.lodz.pl


National Centre for Workplace Health Promotion (NCWHP) is located within the structures of the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine – NIOM (Łódź, Poland).

NCWHP, functioning within the structures of NIOM, was established in 1996. It consists of an interdisciplinary team of researchers and implementers who had launched its activities ten years earlier (in the mid-eighties) in a field of sociology of health and medicine. Currently it is enlarged with other disciplines mostly in the field of public health, political science and pedagogy.

The Centre is a unique scientific and implantation institution in Poland which from the beginning of the 90’s of XX century has carried out in a complex and systematic way research and analysis of status and conditions of workplace health promotion in Poland as well as has made use of this data for the purpose of practice.

The main areas of the Centre’s scientific activities are as follows:
− believes, attitudes, activities and lifestyles with relation to health – their social diversity and conditions,
− development and conditions (such as cultural, political, social, psychological ones) of practices in the field of health promotion undertaken in various areas and at different levels of social system.

The main areas of the Centre’s implementation activities are as follows:
− consulting of health promotion projects in enterprises (as well as in other organizations and settings),
− trainings of professionals in the field of know-how of preparation, implementation and evaluation of health promotion projects,
− creation of social and political support for health promotion of working population as well as coordination of activities of the Polish Network of Workplace Health Promotion structures.

Above mentioned activities are realised by the Centre within the framework of the statutory practice as well as numerous national and international grants (i.e. of the World Bank, European Commission, Ministry of Health and other Ministries) and contracts (with enterprises as well as other organizations and administration authorities). The Centre collaborates with other similar Polish and international institutions focused in the network structures of working population health.

The Centre was established in 1995 and since then has been coordinating the Polish Network for Workplace Health Promotion gathering main partners functioning in this area. It also disseminates ideas and professional knowledge in the field of working population health. In 2001 the Polish Network was incorporated into the structures of the European Network for Workplace Health Promotion, whereas the Centre became its National Contact Office. What is more, in 2008 one of the Centre’s researchers was accepted by the Polish Ministry of Science as an expert in COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) team working on a subject of cyberbullying.
Main scientific achievements in the field of health promotion:
The Centre coordinated in 2005-2006 a project which enabled enlargement of the European Network for Workplace Health Promotion by East and Central European countries acceding European Union. Due to the recognition of systems and institutions functioning in the field of health promotion in such countries, leader organisations as well as their aims and conditions of their development such countries were entitled to enter the European Network on equal basis.

The Centre took part in various scientific and implementation projects of the European Network for Workplace Health Promotion.
In 1990 employees of the Centre published the first in Poland scientific monograph (based on data from research carried out on the representative sample of the Polish working population) concerning lifestyles including all the most important health behaviours. Since then the Centre has been carrying out regular (with a few years intervals) analysis of health behaviours and awareness of the Polish society (with the main focus on the working population). This way it monitors effects of health promotion processes in the whole country.

Currently the Centre coordinates and carries out an international project concerning conditions of health promotion and education of vulnerable groups - mostly low educated people. Thanks to them it will be possible to list those conditions whose addressing can enable improvement of effectiveness of health promotion programmes aimed at such a group.

In 2002 The Center initiated a new area of research concerning health promotion in the context of the needs of older employees. This contributed vastly to launching the discussion about the issue of aging workforce in the country.
In 1997 the Centre started regular monitoring of activities in the field of health promotion undertaken in Polish enterprises (representative studies). Repetition of such analysis every few years led to development of a unique and only database on this issue in the country.

Separate field of monitoring concerns tobacco control policies in enterprises. Since the year 2000 regular analysis of status and conditions for creation of smoke – free workplaces on a representative samples of enterprises has been carried out.

Major field of activities of the Centre since its foundation has been a regular monitoring of macro social conditions for health promotion of the working population in Poland. Research in this area includes analysis of legal framework, employers’ and managers attitudes, activities of institutions and professionals responsible for health promotion. The work carried out allowed for comprehensive evaluation of obstacles and conducive factors for health promotion in Poland and its regular updates

NC WHP specialist are authors of tools for assessment of workplace health promotion projects that have been disseminated (inter alia via Internet)  both in  the scientific circles (internationally) and amongst employers in Poland. This enables easier realization of such activities in companies.

All research carried out by the Centre are adjusted to the goal of practical utilization in the field of health promotion. On one hand new arising problems, not present yet in the area of implementation are investigated and on the other issues that support and improve response to traditional problems are taken into account. The results of scientific work are promulgated widely in the publications targeting practitioners and they are also forwarded to professionals and institutions involved in health promotion.
In 2009 the scientific activities of the Polish National Centre were awarded by World Health Organisation. The State Kuwait Prize for Research in Health Promotion was handled to the representative of Nofer Institute during the Sixty-second World Health Assembly in Geneva.

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