Development and psychometric evaluation of a Total Worker Health® practice scale

Area of Science:

• Occupational Safety and Health
• Public Health
• Workforce Education

Background:

• Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professionals require expanded competencies beyond traditional training to address diverse worker well-being concerns.
• An integrative public health approach, termed Total Worker Health (TWH), is essential for managing modern occupational risks.
• There is a need for educational tools to ensure consistent and effective application of TWH practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a valid and reliable scale for assessing TWH skills gaps among OSH professionals.
• To create a competency-based tool that can inform tailored TWH curricula.
• To support the formalization of a TWH competency framework.

Main Methods:

• A 10-item, 5-point Likert scale survey was developed to assess TWH practice competency.
• The scale underwent pre-testing for face validity and was administered to 258 OSH professionals.
• Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and structure was analyzed via exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

Main Results:

• The final 10-item scale demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.91).
• Exploratory factor analysis identified two key factors: TWH program leadership (6 items) and TWH risk assessment and control (4 items).
• The scale accounted for 66.0% of the variance, with strong reliability for both subscales (α = 0.89 and α = 0.80, respectively).

Conclusions:

• A reliable 10-item scale for assessing TWH skills was successfully developed.
• The scale measures two critical constructs: TWH leadership and TWH risk assessment/control.
• This evidence-based tool aids in evaluating OSH professional competency and developing TWH workforce education frameworks.