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
- Developing an evidence base on sex/gender differences in the relationship between working conditions and injury risk, chronic illnesses and return to work. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Completed. (PI on the project)
- Evaluating the impact of mandatory awareness training on occupational health and safety vulnerability in Ontario. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Ontario Ministry of Labour's Research Opportunities Program. Completed. (PI on the project)
- IWH Organizational Performance Metric: Developing and evaluating a simple workplace OHS tool. Funded by Workplace Safety & Insurance Board, Ontario Ministry of Labour. Completed.
- Exploring the relationship between prolonged standing and prolonged sitting at work and heart disease among male and female workers. Completed. (PI on the project)
- Incidence of work-related aggression and violence in Canada. Funded by Ontario Ministry of Labour. Completed. (PI on the project)
Publications
- Naik H, Zhu B, Er L, Sbihi H, Janjua NZ, Smith PM. Work productivity loss in people living with long COVID symptoms over 2 years from infection. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 2025;67(8):588-594. doi:10.1097/JOM.0000000000003440.
- Jetha A, Bakhtari H, Irvin E, Biswas A, Smith MJ, Mustard C, Arrandale VH, Dennerlein JT, Smith PM. Do occupational health and safety tools that utilize artificial intelligence have a measurable impact on worker injury or illness? Findings from a systematic review. Systematic Reviews. 2025;14(1):146. doi:10.1186/s13643-025-02869-1.
- Dharma C, Smith PM, Salway T, Gesink D, Escobar M, Landsman V. A two-step approach to simultaneously correct for selection and misclassification bias in nonprobability samples from hard-to-reach populations. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2025 epub ahead of print. doi:10.1093/aje/kwaf132.
- Jetha A, Liao Q, Shahidi FV, Vu V, Biswas A, Smith B, Smith PM. Machine learning and the labor market: a portrait of occupational and worker inequities in Canada. Social Science & Medicine. 2025;381:118295. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118295.
- Portt AE, Lay C, Chen H, Ge E, Smith PM. Measuring migraine in Canada and the USA: an online survey of emergency room and smartphone application use. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. 2025 epub ahead of print. doi:10.1017/cjn.2025.10140.
Speaker Series presentations
- Examining gender/sex differences in work injury risk, consequences of work injury and the relationship between work stress and chronic disease. IWH Speaker Series. October 14, 2014.
- The impact of job strain on the risk of depression. IWH Speaker Series. October 25, 2011.
- Examining changes in injuries submitted as no-lost-time claims in Ontario between 1991 and 2006. IWH Speaker Series. October 12, 2010.
- Examining trends in no-lost-time claims in Ontario, 1991-2006. IWH Speaker Series. March 31, 2009.
- An examination of the working conditions and risk factors for work-related injuries among immigrant workers in Ontario. IWH Speaker Series. February 3, 2009.
Research summaries
- Work environment may up risk of hypertension in men. At Work article: Institute for Work & Health, April 2013.
- Work environment may put women at risk of diabetes. At Work article: Institute for Work & Health, October 2012.
- Over-qualified recent immigrant men at increased risk of job injury. At Work article: Institute for Work & Health, October 2012.
- Increasing psychological demands elevate risk of depression. At Work article: Institute for Work & Health, January 2012.
- A tough nut to crack: Understanding no-lost-time claims in Ontario. At Work article: Institute for Work & Health, October 2011.
Media coverage
- Working overtime could raise women's diabetes risk. U.S. News & World Report. July 2, 2018. Available from: https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-07-02/working-overtime-could-raise-womens-diabetes-risk
- No, a standing desk isn't as unhealthy as smoking. The Guardian: Guardian News and Media (London). September 21, 2017. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2017/sep/21/no-a-standing-desk-isnt-as-unhealthy-as-smoking
- Bad news: Now standing at work is killing you, too. GQ: Conde Nast (New York, NY). September 17, 2017. Available from: https://www.gq.com/story/standing-death-study
- If you stand for too long at work, you could double your risk of this disease. Reader's Digest. September 15, 2017. Available from: https://www.rd.com/health/conditions/standing-increases-risk-heart-disease-study/
- Standing too much at work can double your risk of heart disease. The Conversation. September 11, 2017. Available from: https://theconversation.com/standing-too-much-at-work-can-double-your-risk-of-heart-disease-83629