About Us
CARERC focuses on serving the Appalachian regions of Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but with a collaborative presence across much of the southern United States.
CARERC combines the academic resources of six colleges—Agriculture, Food, and Environment (CAFE); Education; Engineering; Health Sciences; Nursing; and Public Health--on the University of Kentucky (UK) campus as well as two colleges—Justice and Safety and Health Sciences—from Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) to create a collaborative, highly inter-professional, recognized resource for occupational safety and health research and training for our region. Established in 2012, CARERC has a strong focus on interdisciplinary graduate education.
In addition to preparing graduates CARERC encourages occupational safety and health research through its Pilot Project Research Training Program (PPRT). The PPRT makes available small grants, following a process of competitive review, to encourage students, faculty, and regional partners to develop innovative projects targeted to regional industries and their occupational safety and health concerns.
Our Continuing Education and Outreach programs work with regional partners to offer a wide-variety of courses on occupational safety and health concerns and provides highly visible conferences and workshops. Needs assessments conducted by our Evaluation and Planning Core guide the work of all these programs.
Our goals include:
Conducting interdisciplinary research & education in worker safety and health;
Providing graduate-level academic programs and continuing education (CE) in occupational safety, occupational epidemiology, occupational and environmental health, occupational health nursing, occupational medicine, and other key disciplines;
Developing control technologies, workplace interventions and other solutions designed to protect workers and prevent injury-related costs to businesses, communities, and families.
ERC Executive Committee