employees who join NASA should end their careers healthier than the average American worker. There were several documents that helped transform this outcome objective into a vision for the OCHMO. These included the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Safe Passage (IOM, 2001), which helped develop a focus on prevention, and the Healthy People 2010 report, which served as a model for an occupational health approach to preventive health and provided benchmarks for programs (USDHHS, 2000).

There are impediments, however, to the implementation of the OCHMO’s vision. First, safety is historically a core element of most engineering cultures, whereas health is not; and second, occupational health and safety are each managed in separate NASA offices. Both of these factors affect development and implementation of programs offered through the OCHMO.

Occupational and preventive health programs at NASA are carried out by over 400 health professionals across the 14 centers (Probst, 2004). They provide comprehensive support to NASA’s diverse and highly technical workforce, which includes both federal employees and contractors.