Dr. Peter Smith
Dr. Peter Smith is president and senior scientist at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto, and a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Prior to moving into the president's role in January 2022, Smith was IWH's scientific co-director.
Smith has a master's in public health from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a PhD from the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto. He is a former recipient of a New Investigator Award (2008-2013) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR),a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council (2012-2014), and a five-year CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health (2014-2018).
Smith has extensive experience conducting research related to work injury and its consequences using large population-based surveys and administrative workers' compensation data. His key research interests include: gender and sex differences in the relationship between work and health; labour market inequalities and their health-related outcomes; labour market experiences of newcomers, older workers, younger workers and other vulnerable labour force subgroups; chronic illnesses and work injury; and trends in working conditions over time.
“I don’t understand how people can think about health without thinking about work. Between our early 20s and our 60s – and later for some people – we spend most of our waking hours at work. It makes sense, then, that aspects of work must have an impact on different aspects of our health, both positively and negatively. That drives me to better understand what good work and bad work look like from a health and return-to-work perspective.” – Dr. Peter Smith
Projects
- Accommodating and Communicating about Episodic Disabilities (ACED): A partnership to deliver workplace resources to sustain employment of people with chronic, episodic conditions. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Signature Initiative. Ongoing.
- Artificial intelligence and occupational injury and illness in Ontario: implications for prevention and recovery. Funded by Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Ongoing.
- Assessing the psychosocial work environment in British Columbia to inform prevention activities . Funded by Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD), WorkSafeBC. Ongoing. (PI on the project)
- Cannabis and workplace fatalities: establishing a baseline in Ontario. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Ongoing. (PI on the project)
- Correcting for participation bias in non-probability samples using multiple reference samples. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Ongoing. (PI on the project)
Publications
- Orchard C, Lin E, Rosella L, Smith PM. Using a causal decomposition approach to estimate the contribution of employment to differences in mental health profiles between men and women. SSM - Population Health. 2024;28:101718. doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2024.101718.
- Daza JF, Chesney TR, Morales JF, Xue Y, Lee S, Amado LA, Pivetta B, Mbadjeu Hondjeu AR, Jolley R, Diep C, Alibhai SMH, Smith PM. Clinical tools to assess functional capacity during risk assessment before elective noncardiac surgery : a scoping review. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2024 epub ahead of print. doi:10.7326/ANNALS-24-00413.
- Dobson KG , Chien YC, Carnide N, Furlan AD, Smith PM, Mustard C. Uncovering mental health profiles of workers with a physically disabling injury or illness using the complete state mental health framework. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation. 2024 epub ahead of print. doi:10.1007/s10926-024-10254-3.
- Daza JF, Mitani AA, Alibhai SMH, Smith PM, Kennedy ED, Shulman MA, Myles PS. Joint models inform the longitudinal assessment of patient-reported outcomes in clinical trials: a simulation study and secondary analysis of the restrictive vs. liberal fluid therapy for major abdominal surgery (RELIEF) randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2024;176:111553. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2024.111553.
- Gilbert-Ouimet M, Zahiriharsini A, Blanchette C, Talbot D, Trudel X, Milot A, Brisson C, Smith PM. Developing a gender measure and examining its association with cardiovascular diseases incidence: a 28-year prospective cohort study. BMC Medicine. 2024;22(1):498. doi:10.1186/s12916-024-03706-3.
Speaker Series presentations
- Refining estimates of occupational exposures and risk of workplace COVID-19 transmission. IWH Speaker Series. January 16, 2024.
- Building on the past, looking to the future: Presenting the IWH Strategic Plan, 2023-27. IWH Speaker Series. May 23, 2023.
- Workplace COVID-19 protections and transmission: Findings from population-level data in Canada. IWH Speaker Series. October 19, 2021.
- Differences in the return-to-work process for work-related psychological and musculoskeletal conditions: findings from an Australian cohort. IWH Speaker Series. April 6, 2021.
- More than just COVID-19 prevention: Exploring the links between PPE, safe work protocols and workers' mental health. IWH Speaker Series. November 10, 2020.
Interviews and articles
- Study of educators during pandemic found psychosocial conditions worse for those teaching online. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 110, Fall 2022.
- Study raises concerns about popular psychosocial work survey. Canadian HR Reporter. June 23, 2022. Available from: https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/people-analytics/study-raises-concerns-about-popular-psychosocial-work-survey/367668
- What research can do: IWH input contributes to enhancement of WSIB’s Health and Safety Index. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 108, Spring 2022.
- Widely used survey lacks ability to tell apart 13 distinct psychosocial work factors. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 108, Spring 2022.
- Host of symptoms, variable recovery times complicate return to work for those with long COVID. CBC Radio - The Current. February 2, 2022. Available from: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-jan-21-2022-1.6322837/host-of-symptoms-variable-recovery-times-complicate-return-to-work-for-those-with-long-covid-1.6333734