University of Pittsburgh professor John Mendeloff is named the first director of the Center for Health and Safety in Workplace. This is a two-year appointment to help generate new cross-disciplinary research and consider enforcement issues in the area of workplace safety.
Welcome to the Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace
The mission of the RAND Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace is to conduct research and analysis that helps improve worker health and safety and reduce the economic costs of workplace accidents and illnesses. The Center provides rigorous, objective analysis and a neutral venue in which to convene stakeholders from government, industry, and labor.
With funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Center has just launched three studies described immediately below. Other new and ongoing studies are described under the "Projects" section of this web site.
Recent Publication
Issues and Performance in the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation System
This report reviews the performance of the Pennsylvania workers' Compensation (WC) system, focusing on benefits, compensation, workplace safety and other key aspects. Included are analysis and recommendations for policymakers based on stakeholder interviews and published research. The authors find that, in general, Pennsylvania's WC system performs reasonably well relative to other states, but they note that the Commonwealth may not be as strong in its performance on some safety measures.
Project Work
RAND currently has 13 ongoing research projects in the field of occupational safety and health. About half deal with prevention topics and half with workers' compensation issues, including return to work and medical guidelines for treatment of injured workers. In addition to these research studies, RAND has been working under contract with NIOSH to assist staff there with strategic planning and with preparation of evidence packets for review by the National Academy of Science. Funding for the research projects comes from the California Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, NIOSH, Zenith Insurance, Duke Energy Foundation, the Alcoa Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, and the Department of Defense. Read more »
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