Past events

IWH Speaker Series

New models for occupational cancer surveillance in Canada

Paul Demers, Occupational Cancer Research Centre

There are 60 well-established workplace carcinogens identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. But there are over 100 industrial chemicals (and other agents) that are suspected to cause cancer. Canada lacks any rapid, low-cost means to assess whether exposures, occupations or industries pose an increased risk. In this plenary, the director of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre shares two projects currently being undertaken to establish alternative models for occupational cancer surveillance in this country. If successful, these projects will create two, alternative platforms for the surveillance of occupational cancer in Canada.

IWH Speaker Series

The management of OHS and return-to-work issues in temporary work agencies

Ellen MacEachen, Institute for Work & Health

Temporary work agencies are a growing phenomenon and an increasingly established part of new flexible labour markets. Studies have shown that agency workers are at greater risk for occupational accidents and diseases than permanent workers. However, little is known about the management of injury prevention and return to work within temporary work agency contexts. In this presentation, Dr. Ellen MacEachen talks about the findings from an IWH study on the organization of health and safety in temporary work agencies.

IWH Speaker Series

Supporting employees dealing with chronic diseases: Emerging issues among workers with arthritis

Monique Gignac, Toronto Western Research Institute

Individuals with chronic physically disabling illnesses experience a number of challenges when working.This plenary discusses three separate studies of individuals with inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis, and highlights the episodic nature of many chronic conditions like arthritis, the work-health balance and perceived “job lock” (that is, being trapped in a job because of one’s health).Those reporting "job lock" were more likely to report absenteeism related to their disease, job disruptions and lower productivity. These findings are discussed, along with the need for workplace interventions to target work-related and psychosocial issues that could facilitate or undermine employment.

IWH Speaker Series

Is safe production an oxymoron?

Mark Pagell, York University

Both safety and operations scholars conduct research on safety practices and outcomes, and yet they sometimes reach different conclusions about the relationship between creating a safe workplace and creating a productive workplace. This plenary discusses research that examined safety practices and outcomes in the wider context of business operations.The goal was to enhance the understanding of the practices critical for safe workplaces, and the business value (positive or negative) of safety. The results provide new and novel insights.

IWH Speaker Series

Reflecting on a program of participatory ergonomics interventions: A multiple case study

Richard Wells, University of Waterloo

To date, evaluations of participative ergonomics (PE) interventions have shown mixed results. In a multiple case study of four worksites in different companies, Dr. Wells' team examined process, implementation and effects of PE interventions. This study was based on fieldwork and interviews with 90 people. The team was able to introduce 10 to 21 changes over 10 to 20 months, despite some challenges. This plenary describes the research, which ultimately showed limited effects of PE interventions, and potential reasons that may account for this.

IWH Speaker Series

Health and wellness of southern Ontario truck drivers

Transportation workers are more susceptible to chronic disease as a result of higher prevalence of selected risk factors, working conditions and certain lifestyle choices. Researchers conducted focus groups with drivers and trucking-firm managers to inform the development of health and wellness surveys administered to drivers in 13 transport companies in 2011. This plenary describes results of the focus groups and surveys, and outlines ongoing initiatives and collaborative directions that have come about from stakeholder strategic planning meetings. This research was jointly undertaken by McMaster University and the City of Hamilton’s Public Health Services.

IWH Speaker Series

Repeat workers’ compensation claims

Jacob Etches, Institute for Work & Health

When examining workers’ compensation claims data, it is usually assumed that each claim represents an independent event. However, claimants often file repeatedly. Little is known about repeat claimants. This plenary discusses research into repeat claimants in several provinces.

IWH Speaker Series

Pictograms development and evaluation project

Trevor King, Institute for Work & Health; Kim Grant, Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

This plenary outlines a collaborative effort between Workplace Safety and Prevention Services (WSPS), one of Ontario's health and safety associations, and the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) to develop a pictogram-based hazard identification system. The organizations worked together to develop and evaluate pictograms (i.e. visual symbols) and a corresponding training program for kitchen prep workers in restaurants across Ontario. The plenary details the pictogram and training development process and the following pilot study evaluation.

IWH Speaker Series

Plastics and breast cancer: A lens on women working in the auto sector

Anne Rochon Ford, Canadian Women's Health Network

Anne Rochon Ford is leading the project "Women, Plastics and Breast Cancer National Network on Environments and Women's Health" at York University. In this plenary, she presents a 'snapshot' of recent studies that give rise to emerging health concerns for women workers in the auto sector, specifically plastics manufacturing. In particular, there are strong reasons to believe that there may be an elevated incidence of breast cancer and reproductive problems in women plastics workers. For the over 25,000 women plastics workers in the auto industry in southwestern Ontario, the stakes are high.

IWH Speaker Series

Race, poverty and precariousness: Understanding the racialization of poverty in Canada

Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Ryerson University

In this presentation, Dr. Grace-Edward Galabuzi examines major trends in the labour market in the last 25 years, chief among them the growing gap between workers and the managerial/professional class. This gap is increasingly racialized. This is manifest in the analysis of income and employment data of racialized/immigrant and non-racialized/Canadian-born cohorts. Dr. Galabuzi discusses the impact on key aspects of life experience, such as disproportionate exposure to low income, differential health status and residential segregation. This comes at a time when racialized group members are projected to become a third of the Canadian population over the next 20 years.

Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture

Research informing public policy: Workers’ compensation in California

Robert Reville, RAND

In this lecture Dr. Robert Reville, the leader of the permanent disability study and other studies on the performance of the California workers’ compensation system over this past decade, shows how research informed public policy. He also gives examples in the areas of improving return-to-work outcomes for disabled workers, the adequacy of benefits for workers experiencing permanent impairment and challenges in ensuring fairness in the adjudication of workers’ compensation benefits.

IWH Speaker Series

The impact of job strain on the risk of depression

Peter Smith, Institute for Work & Health

In this presentation, Dr. Peter Smith discusses a recent project that considered the impact of changes in job strain on the risk of depression. More specifically, this research assessed the impact of changes in dimensions of the psychosocial work environment – job control, psychological demands, job strain and social support – on the risk of depression in a longitudinal cohort of 3,735 Canadians. Results of this analysis are presented and discussed in this plenary.

IWH Speaker Series

Work injury risk by time of day in Ontario

Cameron Mustard, Institute for Work & Health; Andrea Chambers, Institute for Work & Health

In this presentation, Cam Mustard and Andrea Chambers provide a summary of the preliminary findings of a study that examined the incidence of work-related injury and illness in the Ontario labour force across the 24-hour clock. They also review the study methods. Two data sources were used (WSIB lost-time claims and records of non-scheduled visits to Ontario emergency departments), while information on hours worked was obtained from Statistics Canada sources.

IWH Speaker Series

Regulatory action against bullying and harassment in the workplace in an international perspective: From research to policy

Katherine Lippel, University of Ottawa

The presentation explores various strategies in the development and implementation of regulation to address workplace bullying and harassment in developed and developing countries, while identifying strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. The analysis includes reflections on the relationship between research and regulation and provides illustrations drawn from studies on occupational violence, gender issues and precarious employment.

IWH Speaker Series

An economic evaluation of distance lifestyle counselling among overweight employees

Marieke van Wier, VU University Amsterdam

Marieke van Wier, a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Institute for Health and Care Research at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, discusses a study that compared the cost-effectiveness of three different forms of distance lifestyle counselling for overweight workers. An economic evaluation was conducted alongside a three-arm randomized controlled trial that compared the effectiveness of a six-month counselling program offered through self-help brochures, phone intervention or internet intervention, with a two-year time horizon. The internet intervention was found to be more effective for weight loss than self-help brochures alone, and at relatively the same cost. The phone intervention was not cost-effective compared with self-help brochures.

IWH Speaker Series

Developing an Ontario strategy to prevent MSDs due to manual materials handling: Lessons learned from Australia

Jean Mangharam, WorkSafe, Western Australia

The Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD) is holding a discussion forum on Monday, June 27 on the development of an Ontario manual materials handling (MMH) program to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The forum is being organized in response to Ontario’s focus on high-impact claims and CRE-MSD's wish to be involved in the next version of Ontario's MSD strategy. The forum will include speakers from British Columbia, United States, United Kingdom and Australia, who will talk about efforts in their own jurisdictiosn to protect workers from injury related to MMH. Jean Mangharam, principal scientific officer/inspector of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Team at WorkSafe in Western Australia, is one of the speakers at the CRE-MSD discussion forum. At this plenary, which takes place the day after the forum, she will talk about Western Australia's experiences with the design, dissemination, workplace implementation and evaluation of a guidance on MMH, and the responses it received from workplace parties during the process. She will also give her impressions of the discussion forum and describe how the Australian experience can relate to the development of an Ontario strategy to prevent MSDs due to MMH.

IWH Speaker Series

Labour force participation and health in people living with HIV

Sergio Rueda, Ontario HIV Treatment Network

This presentation discusses a body of research aimed at understanding the complex link between work and health in the context of HIV disease. Grounded in the study of causation hypothesis – i.e. employment leads to better health – this talk will draw from several studies that have used secondary data to examine the association between employment, job security and health-related quality of life. It presents baseline enrolment data from a community-based study designed to examine the health effects of employment transitions in HIV. This work acknowledges the difficulties inherent in analyzing data where the structure of benefit programs may create incentives for people with HIV to remain at work when their health is compromised (in order to maintain access to insurance) or disincentives to go back to work when their health improves (to avoid losing disability income or medication coverage).

IWH Speaker Series

Breast cancer and shift work: mechanisms and measurement

Lin Fritschi, Western Australian Institute for Medical Research

In 2007, based on good evidence from mouse studies and limited evidence from epidemiological studies, IARC declared that shift work involving night work was a probable carcinogen (mainly regarding breast cancer). Since then, several studies on shift work and breast cancer have been released, which are less supportive of the association. In the epidemiological literature, the dominant hypothesis regarding the underlying mechanism for the association is that light at night suppresses melatonin, resulting in a diminution of the anti-carcinogenic effects. In this talk, Lin Fritschi, cancer epidemiologist and head of the Epidemiology Group at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research in Perth, will outline the framework that includes an additional four possible mechanisms. This framework has been used to design a questionnaire that can disentangle various aspects of shift work, in order to determine which of the mechanisms are most related to any effect. Fritschi's group is using this questionnaire in a current case-control study of breast cancer.

IWH Speaker Series

Does radiating spinal pain determine future work disability?

Vicki Kristman, University of Toronto

Dr. Vicki Kristman from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto discusses a study that set out to determine if radiating spinal pain from the low back, mid back and neck is associated with future use of health-related benefits and their duration.

IWH Speaker Series

Corporate social responsibility - The business case and self-regulation: Do they really work in achieving workplace safety?

Susan Hart, Memorial University

The political shift towards an economic liberalism in many developed market economies, emphasizing the importance of the marketplace rather than government intervention in the economy and society, has featured a prominent discourse focused on the need for business flexibility and competitiveness in a global economy. Alongside these developments has been an increasing pressure for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case for CSR – that corporations would benefit from voluntarily being socially responsible – was promoted by many governments and corporations as part of the justification for increasing self-regulation in public policy. This presentation examines more closely the proposition that the business case and self-regulatory frameworks work in achieving workplace safety.