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Last spring, we invited subscribers to IWH products to tell us how you use and share IWH research findings and resources. Our deepest thanks go out to all those who took part. A report sharing the results of that stakeholder survey is now available on our website.

As vaccination rates pick up steam across the country, there’s a real sense we are climbing out and emerging into a new normal. It’s with this sense of hope that we look back at our research strategy during the pandemic and consider what it will look like going forward. We also take a look at the findings to come.

Five of our most practical research findings from the past year for professionals in occupational health and safety (OHS) are all together in one handout. The 2021 edition of 5 Things We Think You Should Know is now available. Please download and share.

Frontline health-care providers play an important role in helping people return to work following a work-related injury or illness. But family doctors and other frontline practitioners may lack familiarity with the workers’ compensation system and return-to-work processes. A new telementoring project is being launched in Ontario to address this skills gap. Project ECHO on Occupational and Environmental Medicine, to be hosted by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH), will launch in the fall. It will be the first such project on occupational medicine, using the innovative hub-and-spoke health-care mentoring model called ECHO—short for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes—that’s now used around the world.

We know that being out of work puts people at risk of short- and long-term health consequences—including higher death rates. A new Institute for Work & Health study looks at whether—and how much—having income support during unemployment can lessen the negative impact.

Congratulations to Dr. Faraz Vahid Shahidi, who has been named associate scientist at the Institute for Work & Health. Shahidi, a PhD in social and behavioural health sciences from the University of Toronto and an MPhil in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford, recently completed the Mustard post-doctoral fellowship in work and health at the Institute.   

Workers at small firms say they are more frequently exposed to hazards and report more work-related injuries and illnesses than workers at large firms. But an Institute for Work & Health study finds the injury risks in large and small firms even out when weaker occupational health and safety policies at small firms are taken into account.

About half of British Columbia workers who have a lost-time work injury or illness don’t report the injury or illness to WorkSafeBC. This is according to a recent study on claim suppression commissioned by WorkSafeBC and conducted by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and Prism Economics and Analysis. It found the main reasons for not reporting are workers not knowing they are entitled to compensation or how to apply, and thinking it’s not worth their time to make a claim. As detailed in a policy briefing, the study also found an estimated four to 13 per cent of people with work-related injuries in B.C. experience claim suppression—i.e. pressure or inducement from an employer not to make a claim.

The XXII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work is now less than 100 days away! Check out the line-up for the virtual event, taking place September 20-23, 2021. Co-hosted nationally by IWH, the Congress offers more than 30 sessions and symposia, featuring 150 speakers from around the world and focusing on three themes: innovations in addressing long-standing occupational health and safety (OHS) challenges, implications of the changing world of work for OHS, and advancing a culture of prevention.

In this issue, read about our joint study on claim suppression in British Columbia. Learn about the factors that raise injury risks for small workplaces, and find out what nine future of work trends may mean for workers already facing barriers to the labour market.

Are you a young person living with a disabling health condition? Do you have direct experience supporting young people with disabilities? Or do you have expertise in policy, labour markets, disability and employment or strategic foresight?

If you answer yes to any of the above, we invite you to take part in an online activity aimed at designing better future work supports for young people with disabilities. For more information about this study, please contact Kay Nasir by emailing knasir@iwh.on.ca.

Ultraviolet radiation due to sun exposure is one of the most common causes of work-related cancer in Ontario. A new study by IWH examines the costs and benefits of providing protective clothing and shade shelter to avert work-related non-melanoma skin cancer over 30 years.

On April 28, we mark the Day of Mourning to remember people who are hurt or killed on the job. And this year again, it is an opportunity to pay tribute to essential workers who continue to provide the health care, goods and services we depend on, and to mourn those who have lost their lives or health to COVID-19 in the course of doing so. Let’s all take a moment on the day to resolve to do what we can to ensure the health and safety of all workers.

Does depression hurt the earning potential of affected workers in Canada and, if so, how much? That was what IWH Research Associate Kathleen Dobson set out to find. Using an innovative technique, she calculated the average drop in workers’ earnings in the first year after workers experienced a depressive episode—and how much ground they continued to lose over 10 years.

In the next two decades, the world of work will look very different than it does today. Major forces are driving change: digital technologies, artificial intelligence, climate change, demographic shifts, and more. What does the future hold for people who already face barriers in the labour market? In a new project report, an IWH team led by Scientist Dr. Arif Jetha lays out nine trends and what they may mean. A summary of the report is also available in At Work. 

The devastating impact of COVID-19 on employment for people with disabilities was a major theme at the annual Disability and Work in Canada conference, held late last year. But participants also heard about ongoing initiatives on strengthening income support, promoting workplace inclusion, measuring progress—and many others that make up a pan-Canadian strategy to improve paid employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. Conference videos are now available at the Centre for Research on Work Disability Policy conference page. 

Workers’ compensation boards in several provinces across Canada now recognize work-related chronic stress claims. In the state of Victoria, Australia, where such claims have been accepted for many years, differences are found between mental health and musculoskeletal claims in return-to-work outcomes and processes. In an IWH Speaker Series presentation on April 6, IWH Senior Scientist and Scientific Co-Director Dr. Peter Smith delves into the differences between these two types of claims and explores the lessons they may hold for Canada.

Congratulations to the four recipients of a 2021 S. Leonard Syme Fellowship in Work and Health. They are: Kathleen Dobson, University of Toronto; David Kinitz, University of Toronto; Jennifer Ritonja, Queen’s University; and Siobhan Saravanamuttu, York University. The Syme fellowships were established by IWH in 2002 to support early-career researchers who intend to study work and health.

Which groups of workers are at greater risk of working in precarious jobs? According to a new IWH study, among people with disabilities, older workers and workers with less tenure worker are those with higher risks.  

Inside the Winter 2021 issue:

• Unionized firms have lower lost-time injury rates than non-unionized ones, according to a second IWH study in Ontario's industrial, commercial and institutional construction sector.
• The differences between people who use cannabis at work and those who use, but never at work, are all related to the jobs people do or the work environments they're in.
• The impact of the pandemic on people with disabilities was a dominant theme at the 2020 Disability and Work in Canada conference, but some participants also spoke of hope.

Job visibility. Supervisors willing to address on-the-job cannabis use. When examining the factors that set apart people who used cannabis at work from those who used cannabis but never on the job, researchers at IWH found some factors that were expected, including the factors mentioned above. But some of the factors they found were both surprising and hard to explain.

Workplaces currently use a range of practices to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)—from ergonomics training and workstation adjustments to work redesign. To help workplaces identify and implement appropriate prevention programs, a research team at IWH worked with partners in Newfoundland and Labrador to create a resource that draws upon the best available research evidence, integrated with practitioner expertise and stakeholder experiences. The resource is now available to download. 

Some of the most common chronic health conditions are episodic and invisible. As a result, people living with them often grapple with the complex decision of whether to tell their employers about their disability. A new study, led by IWH Senior Scientist Dr. Monique Gignac, looks at people’s reasons for disclosing or not. The findings shed light on how people’s reasons matter to the work support they subsequently receive.

In the current second wave of COVID-19 in Ontario, workplace outbreaks—not including outbreaks in health-care, congregate living (e.g. correctional) and educational settings—represent slightly over five per cent of all cases among working-age adults, down from a high of 22 per cent in June. That’s according to an analysis by IWH Scientific Co-Director Dr. Peter Smith and President Dr. Cam Mustard, detailed in a new Issue Briefing.