Upcoming events
IWH Speaker Series
Challenges in designing organizational and system-level interventions to prevent work disability
Dr. William Shaw, University of Connecticut School of Medicine
Interventions to prevent work disability can vary widely. They can include: changes in laws and regulations; provider training and education; outreach and support to workers and supervisors; modified employer policies and practices; and changes in insurance and medical reimbursement policies. Given the very wide band of possible strategies in this area, researchers and policy makers face some serious design challenges when developing feasible and effective interventions. In this presentation, Dr. Bill Shaw discusses three intervention design issues: reach, implementation, and organizational structure. He draws on published and ongoing studies to discuss feasibility constraints, design assumptions and evaluation methods.
IWH Speaker Series
Introducing the new MSD Prevention Guideline for Ontario
Dr. Richard Wells, The Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD)
The Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD) kicks off Global Ergonomics Month with the launch of the new MSD Prevention Guideline for Ontario. This initiative builds on a previous guideline and toolboxes, developed in 2005-2006 by the Ontario health and safety system under the auspices of the Occupational Safety and Health Council of Ontario (OSHCO). In this presentation, CRE-MSD's Dr. Richard Wells provides an overview of the updated content and the host of tools and resources to meet the needs of workplaces of all types and sizes. He also outlines the new guideline's three interlinked sources: Quick Start (an introductory guideline for micro and very small businesses), Basic and Comprehensive.
IWH Speaker Series
An impact analysis of two silica dust exposure reduction strategies
Dr. Emile Tompa, Institute for Work & Health
Crystalline silica dust exposure is common in the construction sector. Inhalation of silica dust is known to cause lung cancer, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis. In this presentation, Dr. Emile Tompa examines the implementation of two approaches to reducing exposure: use of personal protective equipment (i.e. respirators) by all exposed individuals and use of engineering controls (e.g. wet method) wherever and whenever feasible. He shares findings from an impact analysis based on data spanning 30 years.
Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture
Preventing occupational disease: Moving the agenda forward
Dr. Paul Demers, Director, Occupational Cancer Research Centre, Toronto, Ont.
Exposures arising from work in high-income countries are understood to be responsible for 15 to 20 per cent of all lung cancers, 15 per cent of asthma cases, and varying proportions of many other diseases. There is a now a growing recognition that the burden will persist if we don’t pay increased regulatory and voluntary attention to occupational disease prevention. In the 2018 Nachemson lecture, Dr. Paul Demers will review the distinct research challenges in establishing a causal relationship between exposure to substances in occupational settings and the onset of disease. He will describe the process by which important international agencies establish a scientific consensus on disease causation arising from occupational exposures and the challenges of estimating the burden of occupational disease. He will also highlight past successes in occupational disease prevention in Canada and outline his perspective on opportunities to move the occupational disease prevention agenda in Canada in the decade ahead.
Conferences
2020 World Congress on Safety and Health at Work
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) and the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) are proud to announce that Canada has been selected to host the XXII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, to be held in Toronto in the fall of 2020. The World Congress, sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Social Security Association (ISSA), is the world’s largest event for the international occupational health and safety community and will draw more than 3,500 delegates from more than 150 countries.
Past events
IWH Speaker Series
Prevention of work injuries using a systematic KTE approach: Experiences from a research project in Denmark
Dr. Johnny Dyreborg,
National Research Centre for the Working Environment
In a two-part presentation, Dr. Johnny Dyreborg summarizes findings from a systematic review on the effectiveness of safety interventions and describe an interactive approach of knowledge exchange. In the first part of the presentation, he shares preliminary results from a recent review that evaluated a range of different types of safety interventions directed at reducing workplace injuries. In the second part, he discusses the shortcomings of review methodology that decontextualizes research findings. He also outlines an interactive knowledge exchange approach for implementing evidence-based ‘best practice’ injury prevention at the workplace, one that builds on IWH's Knowledge Transfer and Exchange (KTE) methods.
IWH Speaker Series
Challenges in accommodating mental and physical health conditions: What workplace parties are saying
Dr. Monique Gignac, Institute for Work & Health
Employers are increasingly being asked to accommodate workers with episodic physical and mental health conditions such as depression, arthritis, colitis and others. Symptoms of these conditions can be intermittent, unpredictable and often invisible to others. As such, employers can find it challenging to provide support and accommodation for these conditions, particularly in light of privacy legislation aimed at protecting workers from needing to disclose disease diagnoses. In this presentation, Dr. Monique Gignac shares findings from a study examining organizational perspectives on implementing work disability prevention and management practices, as well as key issues in supporting workers with chronic, episodic conditions.
IWH Speaker Series
The effects of gradual return to work on sustained return to work
Dr. Esther Maas, Partnership for Work, Health, and Safety, University of British Columbia
Gradual return to work (GRTW) provides workers recovering from an injury with the opportunity to limit or modify work tasks and gradually build up work hours and work load with the goal of returning to full hours and duties. In this presentation, Dr. Esther Maas presents her research, which used detailed administrative workers’ compensation calendar data on return-to-work (RTW) in British Columbia to explore the effect of GRTW on sustained RTW. She also discusses opportunities for using population-based data to analyse the costs and effects of GRTW to improve RTW outcomes.