Document directory

While primary care physicians play an important role in helping ill and injured workers return to work (RTW), they have a variety of learning needs about how to best navigate the RTW process. These needs fall in the areas of completing administrative tasks, challenging personal beliefs, understanding specific RTW issues and learning about available RTW services and tools.

In the first systematic review on the subject, IWH examined the research literature on racial and ethnic inequities in return to work. It found strong evidence that non-white workers are less likely than white workers to return to work following an injury or illness—and moderate evidence that Black workers face pronounced barriers.

After an IWH study filled a research gap on claim suppression in B.C. and helped make the case for change, the province amended legislation to strengthen protections against the practice.

According to an IWH study, Canadian workers typically fall into six patterns of daily movement. These six patterns are associated with varying levels of cardiometabolic disease risk. In general, workers with higher daily activity levels had lower levels of cardiometabolic disease risk factors, but those with moderate activity also showed lower risk factors.

IWH's 2023-2027 Strategic Plan lays out four key strategic directions that will guide the Institute for the next five-year period.

In the fall of 2022, an Institute for Work & Health (IWH) research team set out to examine how working life could change in Canada over the next seven years and what the implications might be for young adults with a disability. Using strategic foresight methods, the IWH team created three future scenarios that are designed to provoke discussion about the policies needed now to ensure an inclusive future for people with disabilities.

This tool identifies job demands that are difficult for a worker with a chronic, potentially episodic, health condition and suggests personalized accommodation ideas tailored to these demands that can help the worker continue to work comfortably, safety and productively.

When the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba decided to update its return-to-work training, it wanted to build confidence in the content by including evidence-based guidance from trusted sources. For a key part of the workshop, it turned to the Institute for Work & Health's "Seven Principles."

There is currently little to no information on the foundational and transferable skill levels of persons with disabilities (PWDs). Through a literature review and key informant interviews, a research team set out to identify and fill knowledge gaps, as well as help inform the development of recommendations for how remaining gaps could be filled.

Il existe actuellement peu ou pas d’informations sur les niveaux de compétences fondamentales et transférables des personnes handicapées (PH). Une equipe de recherche a fait une analyse documentaire et une entrevue avec des informateurs clés pour identifier et combler les lacunes dans les connaissances, ainsi que pour aider à guider l’élaboration de recommandations sur la façon dont les lacunes restantes pourraient être comblées.

Looking Across Time: The Institute for Work & Health's 2021/22 Annual report

When the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association went looking for a tool to measure the OHS performance of its members firms, it turned to the Institute's easy-to-use, eight-item safety culture measure—the IWH-OPM.

This summary of an IWH research project outlines challenges in return to work within police services related to three key themes: accommodation, communication and trust-building, all within the culture and context of policing.

What daily physical activity pattern is best for your heart health? To answer this question, researchers at the Institute for Work & Health analyzed activity tracker data in a nationally representative sample of 8,909 workers and their 10-year risk of heart disease. This infographic compares how Canadian workers get their exercise—and the implications for their cardiovascular health.

Young adults with rheumatic disease who reported high work activity limitations were also more likely to report persistent high levels of pain, fatigue and active rheumatic disease symptoms. Those who experienced job insecurity were more likely to report persistent pain and active disease symptoms. That's according to an IWH follow-up study conducted over 27 months.

IWH’s Research Impact Model, developed in 2010 to guide the Institute's thinking about its impact, has resonated with other work-health research organizations and informed how they assess the impact of their work.

Work-related training delivered through synchronous or real-time online formats can be just as effective as face-to-face training in building workers’ knowledge or skills. This finding is based on a relatively sparse body of research looking at training aimed at adult learners at the undergraduate level or higher.

Communication is central to disability management—especially in large and complex organizations where multiple parties are involved in the return-to-work process and inconsistent practices can add to communication challenges. Workplace stakeholders in large and complex organizations use key strategies to effectively communicate about RTW. They include communicating messages of support, correctly timing RTW communication, carefully wording messages, framing messages and tailoring messages for individual workers.

Personal support workers (PSWs) faced a range of challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including concerns of contracting or transmitting the virus, reduced work hours and income, loss of childcare services and lack of paid sick leave. While the pandemic highlighted the importance of the PSW workforce to the Canadian health-care system, pre-existing poor working conditions—in particular, insecure jobs with few benefits—exacerbated COVID-19-related work experiences.

When the WSIB decided to revisit the methods behind the Health and Safety Index, two IWH researchers provided advice on areas where the index could be improved. In October 2021, the HSI was revised, incorporating many of the suggestions provided by IWH.

Following a 2017 study to estimate occupational health and safety (OHS) expenditures by employers with 20 or more employees in Ontario, Canada, an Institute for Work & Health (IWH) team has set out to estimate the financial return on those OHS expenditures. This Issue Briefing shares findings from that follow-up study.

Researchers at the Institute for Work & Health are looking for concrete ways to ensure youth and young adults with disabilities are included in the future of work. In the summer of 2021, a research team conducted an online survey with a wide range of people across Canada. This report summarizes six key areas in the future of work that survey participants indicated could both pose difficulties and offer opportunities to young people with disabilities. The report also presents the solutions that participants suggested to address the barriers and take advantage of the opportunities.

This report provides evidence-based insights for policy-makers on the design and administration of funding programs for employment services for persons with disabilities that promote gainful and, ideally, sustainable paid employment opportunities.

Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board made a modified version of an Institute safety culture tool called the IWH-OPM available to firms as a voluntary component of participating in its Health and Safety Excellence Program.

It can be challenging to tackle long-standing musculoskeletal hazards in busy, high turnover settings such as long-term care homes. Despite this, an IWH study finds a participatory approach—one that involves frontline workers—can be successfully implemented and sustained.

In a survey of workers with depression and those who manage them, nearly one out of four said no supports were available. Asked about the most helpful type of support, survey respondents with lived experience of depression most often indicated employee assistance programs (EAPs) and other supports external to the workplace. As for barriers to implementing practices, participants noted unsupportive managers, lack of knowledge about mental health in the workplace, and lack of training for managers.

Taking Stock: The Institute for Work & Health's 2020/21 Annual report

How different is return to work for people with work-related psychological injuries compared to those with work-related musculoskeletal conditions? To answer this question, researchers at the Institute for Work & Health and Monash University followed 869 injured workers in Victoria, Australia for 12 months. This infographic highlights key findings from the study.

If Canada were a fully accessible and inclusive society, the economic benefits would amount to about $337.7 billion in calendar year 2017. This amount is equal to about 17.6 per cent of the gross domestic product in that year.

This handout provides a shortcut to selected IWH resources focused on strengthening safety culture and advancing a culture of prevention.

This handout highlights Institute research exploring and evaluating workplace and policy-level interventions to address longstanding occupational health and safety (OHS) challenges in high-hazard sectors.

This handout highlights Institute research focused on the ways work and the labour force are changing and the implications
for worker health and safety.

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a shift away from in-person classroom delivery of training, towards synchronous online learning formats. Training in occupational health and safety (OHS) has been included in that shift. To help provide the research evidence on the effectiveness of synchronous online learning for OHS training, the Institute for Work & Health undertook two rapid reviews. The reviews were guided by the question: What is the effectiveness of synchronous online learning for occupational purposes, compared to face-to-face learning or other e-learning?

In early 2021, a group of researchers led by IWH President Dr. Cameron Mustard asked authorities responsible for occupational health and safety (OHS) in developed countries how they had, to date, addressed the COVID-19 challenge. This Issue Briefing shares what the researchers learned.

In May 2021, the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) conducted a survey of subscribers to its communications products to gauge the level of trust in, and use of, IWH research and information. This report shares the survey's findings.

The Institute for Work & Health collaborated with Prism Economics and Analysis to conduct a study for WorkSafeBC on claim suppression in British Columbia. This Issue Briefing summarizes the findings of this study and compares them with the findings of previous Institute studies on claim suppression in Manitoba and Ontario, as well as with the findings of other research in Canada.

D’ici deux décennies, le monde du travail au Canada et dans les autres pays industrialisés sera fort différent de ce qu’il est aujourd’hui. Une équipe de recherche basée à l’Institut de recherche sur le travail et la santé a entamé un projet qui vise à aider la préparation des jeunes personnes handicapées pour le monde du travail de l’avenir. Le rapport provenant de ce projet décrit neuf tendances susceptibles de modeler l’avenir du travail et leur incidence pour les travailleurs vulnérables.

Workers in sedentary jobs who meet physical activity guidelines of at least 150 minutes a week have a 37 per cent lower chance of developing diabetes over 15 years, compared to people in the same types of jobs but who do less exercise. Meeting physical activity guidelines is less beneficial for people whose jobs involve movement or high physical demands (such as lifting heavy loads).

In 2020, an Institute for Work & Health research team, using a method from the field of strategic foresight called horizon scanning, began exploring what the future may hold for workers, especially those in vulnerable conditions. Its findings are included in this report, which identifies nine future trends that may have a particular impact on vulnerable workers—both positive and negative.

This research study had the broad purpose of evaluating records of emergency department visits as a source of information for monitoring work-related injury and illness in Ontario. The primary objective of the study was to conduct a formal record linkage of emergency department records for the treatment of work-related injury and illness and workers’ compensation claims over the period 2004-2017. The main interest of this study is to describe the characteristics of the approximately 50,000 annual emergency department records for the treatment of a work-related injury or illness that do not link to a workers’ compensation claim.

This resource, developed with partners in Newfoundland and Labrador, provides research and practice evidence on musculoskeletal injuries (MSI) prevention practices and programs for workplaces to consider and implement. The resource describes the evidence in three main sections: awareness, training, and hazard identification and solutions.

Workers with disabilities are no more likely than those without to work in precarious jobs. However, some subsets of people with disabilities are more likely to work in precarious jobs—older people or people with shorter job tenure. Contrary to expectation, younger people with disabilities are not more likely than older people with disabilities to have precarious jobs. Among people with and without disabilities, having better health is linked to a lower likelihood of working in precarious jobs.

As the incidence of diagnosed cases escalates in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, it is important to understand the degree to which employment in the essential service sectors represents an increased risk of infection. This Issue Briefing examines what the available data says about the role of workplaces in COVID-19 transmission in Ontario, the relative contribution of workplace outbreaks to case numbers, and current information gaps at the population level.