The goal of the Northern California Education Research Center (ERC), a consortium of programs within the University of California, is to train professionals as practitioners and research leaders in occupational safety and health by offering graduate degrees, residency training, clinical experiences, and research mentorship to trainees.
The aim of the ERC is to provide a broad, multidisciplinary educational experience involving student and faculty collaborations in the classroom and on research and service projects. Activities are grounded in multi-campus, interactive teaching programs that translate knowledge into information that can be used to improve worker safety and health. In addition, through the Continuing Education Program and the Outreach components of the Labor Occupational Health Program, the ERC provides continuing education courses and outreach activities to other health professionals.
The Center aims to provide an educational bridge from the University to external constituencies to ensure that practicing professionals, workers, their representatives, supervisors, and other educators benefit from the University’s occupational health and safety expertise. The ERC strives to integrate an occupational safety and health perspective in all of its activities, including such activities as the summer internship program funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, which is designed to encourage students to consider further study in one of the ERC programs.
Currently, graduate students enrolled in the industrial hygiene and ergonomics specialty areas at Berkeley, Agricultural Safety and Health at UC Davis, the occupational and environmental health nursing program, the occupational medicine health nursing program, and the occupational medicine residency at San Francisco, are eligible for NIOSH traineeships which pay tuition, fees, and a modest stipend that varies each year according to availability of funding and the number of occupational health trainees enrolled in the funded programs. The Northern California ERC gratefully acknowledges its support from NIOSH.