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IWH Speaker Series
Worker representation in OHS – a good idea going where?
Andy King, United Steel Workers
Although worker participation in OHS is much discussed in theory and practice, worker representation receives much less attention. A key element in improving OHS throughout history, worker representation was formally recognized by the Ham Commission in Ontario in 1976 as a constitutive element of a fair occupational health and safety system. It has been subject to evolving policies since, many of which seek to minimize its significance and reduce worker participation to individual responsibility. The Labour OHCOW Academic Collaboration (LOARC) was created to provide a forum for exploring the role and potential of worker representation. In this presentation, we will discuss the origins of worker representation in OHS, the importance of activism, the significance of Ham’s recommendations and their subsequent adoption into legislation, the challenge of globalization and economic restructuring, and the threat of relativism.
IWH Speaker Series
Futures studies: its role in setting research agendas for work and health
Niki Ellis, Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research
Futures studies are developing as a discipline, and are increasingly being used by business and government in strategic planning. The Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) is a new Australian institute that has been modelled on the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. It will be using a futures methodology to determine trends relevant to safety (and health), compensation and recovery for up to the period 2030, knowledge needs for the future and thus research priorities for 2011/14. The theory underpinning this work will be presented, along with the proposed method which will combine data text mining for relevant future trends and structured consultations, both virtual and face-to-face, through a think tank supported by leading-edge social network and collaborative project management technology. The methodology will be illustrated with a case study of work undertaken in the Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health in 2007-08, led by the author.
IWH Speaker Series
Modeling work disability prevention: An unmet challenge yet
Patrick Loisel, Work Disability Prevention CIHR Strategic Training Program
Models, as theoretical representations of complex individual and social issues, help to understand issues and find appropriate solutions. Modeling work disability prevention is progressively developing from several domains and is in search of its own unifying perspective. A practical use of this will be discussed.
IWH Speaker Series
Work disability prevention knowledge transfer initiatives for physical therapists in Alberta
Doug Gross, University of Alberta
This presentation describes the results of clinician- and system-level KT initiatives aimed at understanding an observed mismatch between clinical practice and current evidence in work disability prevention by physical therapists by fostering best practice have been developed and implemented in Alberta. The clinician-level project included development and dissemination of a best practice resource guide and “tool kit” for work disability prevention by physical therapists, creation of a network of peer-selected Educationally Influential physical therapists, province-wide seminars for practicing clinicians, and use of these resources in the academic training curriculum. The system-level initiative involved a soft tissue injury continuum of care model designed by the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta that involved staged, evidence-based application of various types of physical therapy and rehabilitation services. Both projects were evaluated for their impact on return-to-work outcomes.
IWH Speaker Series
The impact of temporary employment and job tenure on sickness absence
Heather Scott-Marshall, Institute for Work & Health; Emile Tompa, Institute for Work & Health
Previous studies have suggested that temporary employment and job tenure are associated with work-related health risk exposures and the ability to take a sickness absence, but these studies have not considered the nature of the employment contract in a longitudinal framework. This study investigates the impact of temporary employment on work-related and all-cause sickness absences of one week or more with a focus on how these outcomes are moderated by factors related to social protection (job tenure, union membership and firm size).
IWH Speaker Series
Trying to get back: The challenges faced by registered nurses returning to work
Laurie Clune, Institute for Work & Health
Nursing is a profession that is at high risk for injuries. The successful return of nurses to their pre-injury role is essential given the global nursing shortage. This study sought to describe the return-to-work processes in southern Ontario hospitals through the experiences of injured registered nurses (IRN). The purpose of the study is to describe with a sample IRNs and others involved in hospital injury management how return to work happens in hospitals. This research employed institutional ethnography as the approach to examine the topic. Participants in this study included a convenience sample of six IRNs and 22 others involved in hospital injury management practices. Most IRNs interviewed in this study were unable to return to work. Hospitals faced challenges in finding accommodated work for IRNs given organizational commitments to patient safety and fiscal efficiency. The findings afford new insights and can inform hospital injury management practices used with registered nurses.
IWH Speaker Series
“It’s like we’re forcing them to do it” Vocational retraining challenges facing providers and workers in Ontario’s Labour-Market Re-Entry program
Ellen MacEachen, Institute for Work & Health
Although there have been many studies of return to work, we know little about the situation of injured workers who cannot return to their old workplace and go through a workers’ compensation vocational retraining program. This presentation shows the results of a qualitative study that examined how vocational retraining works in practice in Ontario’s Labour Market Re-Entry (LMR) program in order to provide some understanding of this neglected dimension of return to work.
IWH Speaker Series
A systematic review of the effectiveness of training and education for the protection of workers
Lynda Robson, Institute for Work & Health
Occupational health and safety (OHS) training is widely acknowledged as an important means of addressing the risks associated with occupational hazards, but we are often not sure how effective training is. This presentation will report on a systematic literature review of recent, high quality research studies about the effectiveness of training.
IWH Speaker Series
Return-to-work coordination, the what, when, how, where and by whom: Findings from the Intervention Mapping Project
Carlo Ammendolia, Institute for Work & Health
In Ontario, as in other jurisdictions, return to work (RTW) and disability prevention have become high priorities for employers and insurers given the increasing duration of lost-time claims in recent years. Research evidence suggests that RTW coordination may be helpful in improving RTW. However, details on how to successfully implement a RTW program based on RTW coordination are lacking. Intervention mapping is a methodology that is used to develop and implement complex interventions or programs. We used this approach to develop a RTW program based on RTW coordination that is tailored to the Ontario setting. In this plenary, the methodology used and the findings will be described.
IWH Speaker Series
The role of patients' beliefs in predicting return to work following operatively managed tibial fracture
Jason Busse, Institute for Work & Health
What role do patients’ beliefs play in their likelihood of recovery from severe physical trauma? Can these beliefs be measured in order to help predict long-term outcomes? Dr. Jason Busse, an IWH scientist, will present findings from a study that explored these questions. He and his research team developed and validated an instrument designed to capture the impact of patients’ beliefs on functional recovery from injury. The instrument, called the somatic preoccupation and coping (SPOC) questionnaire, was administered to 359 patients who had undergone operations for tibial shaft fractures. The relationship between their SPOC scores and functional outcomes one year later were then measured.
IWH Speaker Series
An interdisciplinary and participatory approach to prevention
Alec Farquhar, Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers Inc.
Over its 20 year history, the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) has a rich experience in linking efforts to detect and prevent occupational injury and disease. Much has been learned about the best ways for an interdisciplinary clinical team to support participatory prevention interventions in the workplace. This presentation will review that history and the lessons learned for the future.
IWH Speaker Series
Forecasting and modelling worker injury rates in Ontario
Ian Moore, Institute for Work & Health
Ian Moore, a post-doctoral fellow at IWH, will discuss a study that investigated three forecasting models to assess which one works best with time-series data on workers’ compensation lost-time, no-lost-time and total claim rates.
IWH Speaker Series
How the front-line "works" at Ontario's WSIB
Joan Eakin, University of Toronto
This presentation will report on an ethnographic study of front-line service work in Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), specifically the work of adjudicators, nurse case managers and customer service representatives servicing small businesses. The aim of the study was to understand and explain, from a sociological perspective and in relation to institutional context, the nature, logic and social relations of work at the front lines. The presentation will reflect on the relevance and implications of these findings for key stakeholders in the compensation system: injured/ill workers, employers, the WSIB and the OHS system as a whole.
IWH Speaker Series
Income dynamics and adult mortality in Canada and the United States
Jacob Etches, Institute for Work & Health
Income level is a well-known risk factor for mortality among working-aged adults. Job loss and unemployment are also often correlated with increased risk of death. Very little research has investigated income drops, a plausible mediator of a causal effect of unemployment on health, and its association with mortality. In this presentation, Institute for Work & Health Research Associate Jacob Etches will discuss a study that is using tax and survey data to investigate the effect of income level and income drops in Canada and the United States, as well as the induction times for the effects of income level and income drops. The difficulty of establishing the direction of causality for correlations between these exposures and mortality will also be discussed.
IWH Speaker Series
Measuring what matters: Conceptualizing return to work through concept mapping
Rhysa Tagen Leyshon, University of Western Ontario
The evaluation and comparison of return-to-work (RTW) programs and interventions is difficult because no standard, valid outcome measure exists. RTW outcomes are typically measured using administratively based scales that fail to take the perspectives of workers and other stakeholders into consideration. As a first step in developing any outcome measure, the outcomes of interest and importance to key stakeholders need to be established. In this presentation, Rhysa Tagen Leyshon of the Graduate Program in Health and Rehabilitation at the University of Western Ontario, will discuss a study that set out to generate a trusted and credible conceptual framework of successful RTW reflecting the values of all stakeholders equally and fairly.
IWH Speaker Series
The problem of long-duration claims: What is driving increases in duration and locked-in claims?
Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, Institute for Work & Health
Over the last decade in Ontario, the number of total days per lost-time claim compensated by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has increased dramatically, as has the rate of claims remaining active and open. In other words, there has been an increase in claim duration. The trend is in contrast to a declining claim rate experienced over much of the 1990s. Why has there been this increase in the persistence of lost-time claims? Is it due to WSIB policy changes in January 1998 under Bill 99? Could changes in worker demographics, injury characteristics or workplace characteristics account for the increase? IWH Senior Scientist Dr. Sheilah Hogg-Johnson is conducting research to find out. In this presentation, she will discuss this research and what she has found so far.
IWH Speaker Series
Job quality: What is it, why does it matter, and how can it be improved?
Graham Lowe, The Graham Lowe Group
This presentation examines the diverse theories, concepts and practices that address the quality of jobs, work environments and individuals’ work experiences. On this broad canvas, we can identify points of convergence around key sets of determinants and outcomes. However, a common conceptual vocabulary is lacking, which impedes cross-fertilization across disciplines and between researchers and practitioners. The most promising opportunity for an integrated approach is around the connection between work environments, employee well-being and organizational performance. Practitioners and policy-makers need a basic model explaining these complex dynamics. By taking up this challenge, researchers would help ensure that future decisions to improve job quality are informed by evidence.
IWH Speaker Series
Coordinating return-to-work stakeholders in a changing welfare system
Christian Stahl, National Centre for Work and Rehabilitation, Linköping University, Sweden
Research on disability prevention and return to work (RTW) over the last decades has concluded that involving all relevant stakeholders in rehabilitation and disability prevention is important, and that the responsibilities of the stakeholders need to be coordinated. The coordination of RTW stakeholders is promoted by international institutions such as the European Union, and cooperative initiatives have been put into practice in several countries. In the Scandinavian countries, for instance, stakeholder cooperation in rehabilitation and RTW has been the subject of legislation and institutional reforms. Since the 1990s, Sweden has been creating structures for stakeholder cooperation. A more recent initiative is the creation of Coordination Associations (CAs), made up of four central stakeholders in the Swedish social security system: the Social Insurance Agency, the Public Employment Service, municipal social services and primary health care. In this presentation, Christian Stahl of Sweden's National Centre for Work and Rehabilitation will discuss the Coordination Associations, how people employed by the authorities and in health care perceive cooperative work and how recent policy changes affect their practice, as well as recent policy changes from an internationally comparative perspective.
IWH Speaker Series
Occupational exposures and cancer risk
Aaron Blair, Occupational Cancer Research Centre
Studies of exposures in the workplace have made major contributions to our understanding of human carcinogenesis. In the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, occupational exposures account for 31 per cent of the factors classified with "sufficient" evidence for human carcinogenicity, for 42 per cent of those listed as "probable" human carcinogens, and 42 per cent of those listed as "possible" human carcinogens. Given the prominent role played by occupational exposures in our understanding of human carcinogenesis, it is worthwhile to take stock of where we are regarding studies of occupational cancer. In this presentation, Dr. Aaron Blair will look at how successful research has been in reducing the burden of cancer, and what we should be doing in the future.
IWH Speaker Series
What does it mean to be "on disability" in Canada?
John Stapleton, Metcalf Foundation Fellow
What understanding do most Canadians have of disability benefits, and why is it so difficult to have a national discussion about a comprehensive disability benefit program? This presentation will look at the various types of disability income and service programs we have in Canada and why they are so hard to reform.