IWH in the media

A safety culture survey tool is making significant strides in improving workplace safety across the Saskatchewan construction industry. Developed by the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association (SCSA) in collaboration with EHS Analytics, this survey tool is proving to be an invaluable asset in predicting workplace injuries and enhancing Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) performance, writes Shane Mercer, describing the use of IWH's Organizational Performance Metric (IWH-OPM).

The Institute for Work & Health released the "Supporting young persons with disabilities in the future of work" report based on a three-year Delphi study funded by Accessibility Standards Canada. The objective of the research was to forecast changes in the world of work and examine the implications for the employment inclusion of young persons living with a disability. This Charity Village article sums up six challenge areas and the top-ranked strategies for addressing each.

A recent academic article with an Ontario focus offers new insights into the links between workplace-related injuries and opioid harms, with certain occupations including construction found to be at particularly high risk, writes Don Wall

In an article about an online platform that connects adults with chronic illnesses with mentors, freelance reporter Sanam Islam cites IWH research on workers' reluctance to disclose their chronic illnesses to access workplace support.

Dr. Nancy Carnide and Dr. Jeavana Sritharan were keynote presenters at the Opioids in the Workplace virtual event from OHS Canada and Talent Canada on Jan. 31 that attracted nearly 350 professionals. Their research, a collaborative effort between IWH and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre, offers a revealing look at the occupational patterns in opioid-related harms in Ontario and underscores the urgent need for intervention strategies tailored to the working population, writes Todd Humber.

There is a new tool shedding light on opioid-related incidents among Ontario workers. The Opioids and Work Data Tool was developed through a collaboration between the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and the Occupational Cancer Research Centre (OCRC), Shane Mercer reports.

In an article about a report on comorbidities and low back pain from the Workers Compensation Research Institute, reporter Jim Wilson cites IWH research about persistent pain among injured workers in Ontario.

Among recent organized efforts to make jobsites safer, working-at-heights training has been effective, reports an Institute for Work & Health (IWH) study. As Adam Freill reports, in the three-year period after Ontario made working-at-heights training in the construction sector standardized and mandatory, study authors explain that the rate of fall-from-height injuries leading to time off work fell by 19 per cent.

Most workers who use cannabis to treat work-related injuries and illnesses do so without medical guidance or authorization, a recent study out of Canada suggests. This article summarizes findings from the Institute's Ontario Life After Work Injury Study. It found 27.4 per cent of the workers reported using cannabis in the past year. Of that group, 14.1 per cent did so to ease symptoms stemming from a work-related condition, with the majority (67.3 per cent) not receiving guidance on therapeutic cannabis use from a health care provider.

Work has long been considered a social determinant of health, but it has been underused as a lever to address health inequities. That’s the main case an international group of work and health researchers, including IWH researchers, have made in a series of articles on the relationships between work and health recently published in The Lancet, writes Dr. Peter Smith.