IWH in the media

As Shane Mercer reports, Institute for Work & Health associate scientist Dr. Kathleen Dobson unveils findings from a landmark study that tracks the long-term employment trajectories of Canadians with common mental disorders, severe mental disorders, and substance use disorders. 'Having a mental illness does not mean that people cannot be gainfully employed,' Dobson says.

In recent years, Canada has seen troubling increases in what researchers call “deaths of despair,” fatalities caused by suicide, drug poisoning, and alcohol use. An ongoing study from the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) explores the connection between these deaths and job quality. To date, the findings have revealed that workers in low-quality, unstable work situations face much higher risks of dying from these causes than those in well-paid, stable jobs.

Whether it’s cocaine, opioids, prescription medications or performance-enhancing substances, drug use among workers is a challenge for workplaces globally. An article by Katie Smith explores the impact of drugs on workers and workplaces globally, and what the implications are for OSH practitioners. It includes findings from a joint project by the Institute for Work & Health and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre, which indicate that injured workers had higher rates of opioid-related harm compared with individuals of working age in the general population.

A new online tool from Canada’s Institute for Work and Health is intended to help people consider whether to disclose personal health information at work. The free Decision-Support for Communicating about Invisible Disabilities that are Episodic (DCIDE) provides personalized guidance for people grappling with disclosure questions.

Pharmacists can spend an average of eight to 12 hours per day on their feet, often in a static position. Yet, the effects of prolonged standing remain “hidden” because they develop gradually. Standing for long periods has become normalized in pharmacy culture and is overshadowed by other workplace concerns, writes Marina Rowbotham, citing research by IWH's Dr. Peter Smith.

A Toronto Star investigation has found that critical workplace injuries spike on the hottest days of the year. The provincial government knows that heat is a growing and potentially lethal threat to workers, but new protections it once proposed have never materialized, writes climate change reporter Kate Allen, with data analysis provided by IWH's Dr. Peter Smith.

In what was described as a strategic, provincewide collaboration, the WSIB has partnered with Workplace Safety North (WSN) and the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) to lead a proactive campaign aimed at enhancing hygiene monitoring practices and reducing exposure to harmful workplace hazards. The initiative, spearheaded by WSN, is to focus on high-risk sectors such as mining and forestry, where workers continue to face some of the highest rates of occupational illness fatalities in Ontario. WSN has developed a suite of specialized training materials and will work directly with employers and workers through hands-on coaching and real-time use of hygiene monitoring equipment. The IWH will support the initiative by applying its expertise in health and safety research to assess the effectiveness of the training programs and their impact on improving worker safety.

On Day 1 of the Mining Health and Safety Conference in Sudbury, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board announced $6.78 million to protect workers in Ontario’s natural resources sectors, to be conducted by Workplace Safety North and the Institute for Work and Health, Lyndsay Aelick reports.

Compared to those in standard employment, workers in precarious jobs are more than three times as likely to die from drug poisoning and nearly twice as likely to die from alcohol-related causes. The risk of suicide is also markedly higher—2.4 times greater for women and 1.7 times greater for men in precarious work, reports Shane Mercer, based on a webinar presentation by IWH associate scientist Dr. Faraz Vahid Shahidi. The findings challenge the notion that having any job is enough to safeguard health, instead pointing to job quality as a critical, and often overlooked, determinant of life expectancy.

In a column that's part of the Globe and Mail Careers’ Leadership Lab series, Siemens Canada president and CEO Faisal Kazi makes the case to strive for zero safety incidents. He cites IWH research showing each work injury on average costs manufacturing employers $39,000, as well as IWH findings that the return on safety investment in manufacturing is 24 per cent, largely from productivity gains and reduction of workplace injury costs.