May 2017

IWH helps develop safety climate audit tool for Ontario mines

A safety climate audit tool for mining operations is now being piloted in Ontario. Developed as a result of Ontario’s Mining Health, Safety and Prevention Review, the tool is a product of collaboration among the Institute for Work & Health (IWH), Workplace Safety North (WSN) and the Ontario Mining Association. Read about what’s called the Internal Responsibility System Climate Assessment and Audit Tool (IRS CAAT), and the work that went into its development in the latest issue of At Work.

Read the At Work article

And the winner of our FitBit draw is...

Thanks to all those who stopped by the IWH booth at last week’s Partners in Prevention conference. It’s a great honour and pleasure for us to hear about your health and safety research needs—and to offer our resources to support you. The winner of our draw for a FitBit is Chris Ghisyawan, site operations coordinator at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. Congragulations Chris!

For NAOSH Week, here are “5 Things We Think You Should Know”

The 2017 edition of our popular handout, 5 Things We Think You Should Know, is now available online. It sums up five research findings most relevant to workplace health and safety practitioners from the past year. We think it provides a good starting point for discussions about future workplace initiatives during North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week.

Download the 5 Things

IWH scientist explores effectiveness of Ontario’s mandatory OHS awareness training

Since July 1, 2014, employers in Ontario have had to provide occupational health and safety (OHS) awareness training to all staff on the health and safety rights and responsibilities of workers, supervisors and employers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. How effective has this mandatory OHS training been? IWH Senior Scientist Dr. Peter Smith looked into this and found no difference in changes in OHS awareness between Ontario and British Columbia (where there was no new requirement for awareness training). He recently presented his findings at an IWH plenary, now available as a slidecast.

Watch the slidecast

Tell us about your workplace’s practices to help employees with depression

IWH researchers have received funding from WorkSafeBC to conduct a survey about the practices workplaces use to help employees with depression. We want to hear about these practices from both managers and employees. This will help us marry the research evidence on dealing with depression in the workplace with the best practices currently being used to create a free resource for workplaces.

Take the 10-minute survey now

Syme Fellowship now open for applications

Help us spread the word about a fellowship opportunity. The 12-month S. Leonard Syme Training Fellowship in Work & Health is now accepting applications. It’s aimed at young researchers at the master’s or doctoral level. Applicants should have an interest in the social determinants of health and illness in work environments, evaluating workplace interventions to improve health, and/or exploring the measurement issues in either of these two areas. The deadline for applications is June 8.

Find out more

Design workplace exercise programs to prevent MSDs: CRE-MSD webinar

Exercise can be used effectively to prevent and manage musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) when fundamental principles of human movement science are incorporated into its design. In a June 21 webinar, learn how to design exercise-based MSD prevention and management strategies with specific examples of theory applied in work contexts. Viewers will also learn the personal movement habits that increase MSD risk and receive practical tips to make the most of exercise programs. Please register for this free webinar, presented through a partnership between the Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD) and the Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSHSA), by June 19.

To learn more and register

Uyen Vu
Communications Associate
613-979-7742
uvu@iwh.on.ca