The Institute for Work & Health (IWH) is a Canadian leader in work injury and disability prevention research. An independent, not-for-profit organization, IWH conducts and shares actionable research to promote, protect and improve the health and safety of working people.
The Fall 2018 issue of At Work is now available. Inside this issue: promising strategies to reduce the misuse and abuse of prescription opioids, a round-up of the external grants awarded to Institute scientists, the Institute's role in the development of a toxic workplace screening tool, and more. If you didn't get your issue in your inbox, download the PDF here.
Since the start of the opioid crisis in the late 1990s, communities across North America have tried many different strategies to curb the misuse and abuse of prescription opioids. In an open-access systematic review, an IWH team analyzes the effectiveness of the studied strategies, identifies the most promising ones, and points out unintended consequences.
Recreational cannabis is now legal in Canada and many employers are concerned about the potential implications for workplaces. In this IWH Speaker Series presentation, Dr. Nancy Carnide shares early findings of a survey, conducted in June 2018, on patterns of cannabis use at work and workers' perceptions of such use.
Health conditions such as depression, Crohn’s disease and HIV have at least one thing in common. People with these conditions can be in good health for long periods of time and then experience bouts of debilitating symptoms. These recurring and hard-to-predict episodes can make asking for, and providing, workplace accommodation a challenge. Now, Dr. Monique Gignac is leading research aimed at making conversations around accommodation easier, thanks to funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Despite advances in clinical care, millennial young adults with rheumatic disease continue to face challenges finding work and staying productive at work. Workplace policies can help overcome these challenges, but too often they’re aimed at older adults. An IWH study is currently under way to understand what supports millennials with rheumatic disease need from employers. This survey is a first step. Please help us get it into the hands of young workers with lupus, juvenile arthritis, scleroderma and other forms of rheumatic disease.
IN THE CURRENT ISSUE ...
Identifying promising strategies to prevent or reduce misuse and abuse of prescription opioids.
Calculating employers’ spending on occupational health and safety in 17 Ontario sectors.
Developing a screening tool for workplace psychosocial hazards, with the help of IWH’s expertise.
Integrate evidence-based policies and practices into your occupational health and safety, return-to-work and rehabilitation programs. IWH has created a number of tools and guides based on our research findings that can help improve program outcomes.
Find out how IWH research is making a difference. Read our impact case studies, in which policy-makers, workplaces and other stakeholders in health, safety and disability prevention tell how IWH research helped improve their policies, programs and practices.
Whether it’s a policy briefing, a systematic review summary or the highlights of a specific research project, we’ve compiled a number of plain-language summaries to help you understand the research we’re doing, what we have found, and how we found it.
Learn directly from the researchers themselves about their latest findings in health, safety and disability prevention. We host regular presentations (in person or live stream) through our IWH Speaker Series and our annual Nachemson lecture.