Pouran Faghri

Professor Faghri is an occupational and public health scientist and innovator whose work applies behavioral and occupational health research to redesign systems, including workplaces, technologies, and environments, to improve health across the lifespan. Prior to joining UCLA, Professor Faghri was a tenured Full Professor at the University of Connecticut, with joint appointments in Allied Health Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Public Health. She held senior leadership roles including Director of the Center for Environmental Health and Health Promotion, Graduate Program Director, and Department Head, where she built interdisciplinary programs that bridged research, policy, and real-world implementation.

She has extensive experience in research, teaching, and public health education on occupational  stress; program implementation and evaluation; assessment of physical and psychosocial stressors in the work environment,  work organization interventions; and workplace mental health and wellbeing. Her research has been influential in the design of behavioral self-management interventions for chronic conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, integrating behavioral economics, contingency management, and systems-level approaches. Rather than focusing narrowly on individual choices, her work addresses the workplace, social, and physical environments that structurally shape health behaviors and outcomes. She has directed Connecticut’s statewide employee health initiative, ConnectiFIT, and co-led the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW), a NIOSH Total Worker Health Center of Excellence, advancing integrated and participatory approaches to workplace health, safety, and well-being.

Her contributions to biomedical engineering include functional electrical stimulation (FES) application in rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury and stroke. She was involve in the early development of FES- cycle ergometry for individuals with spinal cord injuries, now widely used in rehabilitation settings, and is the sole inventor on a patented application of functional electrical stimulation for the prevention of deep venous thrombosis.  

She has mentored many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows whose work now contributes to public health, policy, and biomedical engineering. 

Publications

1.    Dobson, M., Faghri, P., Landsbergis, P., et.al. (2024). Re: Schulte et al., “An urgent call to address work-related psychosocial hazards and improve worker well-being”: It's time to develop a national regulation regarding work-related psychosocial hazards. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 67(11), 1050-1052. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23657 

2.    Dobson M, Schnall P, Faghri P, Landsbergis P. (2023). The Healthy Work Survey: A Standardized Questionnaire for the Assessment of Workplace Psychosocial Hazards and Work Organization in the United States. J Occup Environ Med. 2023 May 1;65(5):e330-e345. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000002820. Epub 2023 Feb 24. PMID: 36827604; PMCID: PMC10171281.

3.    Sharafi M, Faghri P, Huedo-Medina TB, Duffy VB. (2021). A Simple Liking Survey Captures Behaviors Associated with Weight Loss in a Worksite Program among Women at Risk of Type 2 Diabetes. Nutrients. 17;13(4):1338. doi: 10.3390/nu13041338. PMID: 33920626; PMCID: PMC8072993.

4.    Faghri PD, Dobson M, Landsbergis P, Schnall PL. (2021).  COVID-19 Pandemic: What Has Work Got to Do With It? J Occup Environ Med. 1;63(4):e245-e249. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000002154. PMID: 33560072.

5.    Faghri PD, Punnett L. (2019). Inclusion of ‘Total Worker Health®’ a program by NIOSH, Health Promotion International, Volume 34, Issue 6, , Pages 1250–1251, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/day072. 

6.    Vromans M, Faghri PD. (2017)Electrical Stimulation Frequency and Skeletal Muscle Characteristics: Effects on Force and Fatigue. Eur J Transl Myol. 2017 Dec 5;27(4):6816. doi: 10.4081/ejtm.6816. PMID: 29299218; PMCID: PMC5745385

7.    Faghri PD, Simon J, Huedo-Medina T, Gorin A.(2017). Perceived Self-Efficacy and Financial Incentives: Factors Affecting Health Behaviors and Weight Loss in a Workplace Weight Loss Intervention. J Occup Environ Med. 59(5):453-460. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000987. PMID: 28486342; PMCID: PMC5704946

8.    Buden JC, Dugan AG, Faghri PD, Huedo-Medina TB, Namazi S, Cherniack MG. Associations Among Work and Family Health Climate, Health Behaviors, Work Schedule, and Body Weight. J Occup Environ Med. 2017 Jun;59(6):588-599. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001049. PMID: 28471768; PMCID: PMC5477673.

9.    Faghri PD., Budden J. (2016).  Overtime, shift work, poor sleep and the effects on obesity: a public health problem. J Nutr Disorders Ther 6:e126. doi:10.4172/2161-0509.1000e126.

10.    Buden JC, Dugan AG, Namazi S, Huedo-Medina TB, Cherniack MG, Faghri PD. (2016). Work Characteristics as Predictors of Correctional Supervisors' Health Outcomes. J Occup Environ Med. 58(9):e325-34. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000843. PMID: 27483335; PMCID: PMC5016227.

11.    Christina Mignano, Pouran D. Faghri, Tania Huedo-Medina & Martin C. Cherniack (2016) Psychological health, behavior, and bodyweight (PBBW) model: An evaluation of predictors of health behaviors and body mass index (BMI), Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 31:1, 37-56, DOI: 10.1080/15555240.2015.1100518.

12.    Faghri P, Buden J (2015) Health Behavior Knowledge and Self-efficacy as Predictors of Body Weight. J Nutr Disorders Ther 5: 169. doi:10.4172/2161- 0509.1000169