Document directory

Impact case study
An occupational medicine assessment service integrated two of the return-to-work supports (enhanced coordination and communication) outlined in IWH's evidence-based Seven Principles guide, contributing to a significant improvement in the duration of wage replacement benefits among injured workers with problematic musculoskeletal disorders.
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Impact case study
SAFE Work Manitoba incorporated IWH expertise and tools into the framework of its ambitious safety culture initiative, which aims to make workplace injury prevention a genuine priority among all segments of the population across the province.
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Miscellaneous
The majority of the global population works in small and medium-sized enterprises of fewer than 250 employees. These types of firms account for a disproportionate share of all occupational injuries and illnesses. To maintain a focus on addressing occupational health and safety (OHS) at small and medium-sized enterprises, periodic conferences are held under the auspices of a voluntary, international collaboration called Understanding Small Enterprises (USE).

The fourth international Understanding Small Enterprises (USE) Conference was held in Denver, Colorado, on October 25–27, 2017, hosted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Center for Health, Work and Environment (CHWE) at the Colorado School of Public Health. Included in the proceedings from the conference is a paper on OHS vulnerability in Canadian small enterprises, authored by Institute for Work & Health's Dr. Cameron Mustard, Morgan Lay and Dr. Peter Smith.
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Issue Briefing
While the financial costs of work-related injury and illness are well known, limited information is available on what employers spend to control or eliminate the causes of work-related injury and illness. This Issue Briefing describes the results of a 2017 study to estimate occupational health and safety expenditures among employers from 17 economic sectors in Ontario, Canada.
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Research Highlights
Recent immigrant workers are 1.6 times more likely than Canadian-born workers to experience occupational health and safety (OHS) vulnerability, defined as exposure to hazards without adequate protection to mitigate those hazards.
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Research Highlights
Three in four working Canadians have access near or at their work to a gym, a sports field, a pleasant place to walk, a fitness program, an organized sports team, a health promotion program or a shower/change room. Leisure-time exercise levels are highest for workers with access to all the above. They are twice as likely to exercise in their off-hours as workers with access to none of these.
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Research Highlights
When it comes to workplace supports, people with chronic disease have similar needs, even at different ages and career stages. However, young people face unique challenges related to accessing workplace supports, including a lack of available workplace resources and difficulty overcoming preconceptions around youth and chronic conditions.
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Research Highlights
Women’s and men's stress levels are affected differently by psychosocial work exposures such as supervisor or co-worker support, job control, job demand and job insecurity.
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Accomplishments Report
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5 Things We Think You Should Know
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Tools and guides
This guide, based on a research collaboration led by the Institute for Work & Health, provides an overview of the process involved in modifying the curriculum of an existing occupational health and safety (OHS) training program in order to address gaps in essential skills among worker trainees.
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Tools and guides
This evidence-based guide is designed for anyone in the workplace who supports workers with depression as they cope with their symptoms while working, or when they are returning to work following an episode of depression.
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Impact case study
An IWH study estimating the lifetime cost of newly diagnosed cases of mesothelioma and lung cancer due to work-related asbestos exposures in a single year garnered much media and public interest, and was cited by Canadian government in its analysis of the impact of its regulation banning asbestos.
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Project report
Kosny A, Yanar B, Begum M, Al-khooly D, Premji S, Lay M, Smith PM
This report details the findings of an Institute for Work & Health study on employment preparation process of newcomers in Ontario, with the aim of determining key training and resource needs and opportunities related to safely integrating recent immigrants and refugees into the labour market.
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Project report
Kosny A, Tonima S, Ferron EM, Mustard C, Robson LS, Gignac MA, Chambers A, Hajee Y
This report details the findings of an Institute for Work & Health study that looked at acute-care hospitals in Ontario and how they implemented legislated violence prevention initiatives, to what effect, and the challenges they faced along the way.
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Activity Plan
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Impact case study
Organizations working with recent immigrants are incorporating parts of the Institute's toolkit for teaching newcomers about workplace health and safety into their programming. Organizations in Ontario, Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and even as far away as Australia, say the resource is just what they were looking for.
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Impact case study
An Ontario health and safety association, Workplace Safety and Prevention Services, turned to the Institute's model of breakthrough change to inform its approach to small business, especially the concept of finding the "knowledge transformation leader" within a small business to advocate for occupational health and safety change.
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Impact case study
When the World Health Organization released its evidence-based guideline to help primarily low- and middle-income countries develop, extend equitably deliver rehabilitation services, it relied on evidence synthesized by an IWH research team for five of the guideline's nine recommendations.
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KTE resources
Saunders R
This 2017 presentation outlines the Institute's theory and practice of knowledge transfer and exchange. It's an integrated approach, featuring stakeholder engagement and communications functions under one umbrella within the organization.
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Project report
Kosny A, Tonima S, Ferron EM, Mustard C, Robson LS, Gignac MA, Chambers A
This two-page summary shares the highlights of an Institute for Work & Health study that looked at acute-care hospitals in Ontario and how they implemented legislated violence prevention initiatives, to what effect, and the challenges they faced along the way.
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Impact case study
When Ontario legislated in 1997 that employers and workers cooperate in the early and safe return to work of injured workers, the workplace parties were looking for guidance. They found it in the Institute for Work & Health's evidence-based Seven "Principles" for Successful Return to Work, one of the most popular and widely used guides developed by the Institute.
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Research Highlights
Workers who predominantly stand on the job are at greater risk of heart disease than workers who predominantly sit. Workplace prevention efforts should target excessive standing, as well as excessive sitting, to protect the cardiovascular health of workers.
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Annual Report
Supporting Change in Workplaces: The Institute for Work & Health's 2016 Annual Report
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Research Highlights
Workers with disabilities are more likely to be exposed to hazards at work than other workers, and are more likely to experience vulnerability due to inadequate measures to mitigate those hazards.
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5 Things We Think You Should Know
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Project report
Irvin E, Cullen KL, Van Eerd D, Saunders R, Johnson L, Bornstein S, Butt A
This report provides a synthesis of the relevant research-based evidence on managing depression for the adult working population of Manitoba. The synthesis is based on an international search of the literature, and the findings were then contexualized for Manitoba based on an approach developed by the Institute for Work & Health and Memorial University's SafetyNet Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research.
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Tools and guides
This handbook, the product of a research collaboration between the Institute for Work & Health and Memorial University’s SafetyNet Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research, can be used by occupational health, safety and disability prevention stakeholders seeking to improve policy and/or practice by contextualizing the results of a research synthesis (e.g. a systematic review) to their particular situation (e.g. particular jurisdiction, sector or workplace).
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Systematic Review
Cullen KL, Irvin E, Gensby U, Jennings P, Hogg-Johnson S, Kristman VL, Laberge M, McKenzie D, Newnam S, Shourie S, Steenstra I, Van Eerd D, Amick B
This report synthesizes the evidence from a systematic review on the effectiveness of workplace-based return-to-work interventions and updates the Institute's 2004 systematic review on the same subject. This update brings in evidence published since 2004, and expands upon the original systematic review by including work absences due not only to musculoskeletal disorders, but also to mental health and pain-related conditions.
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Project report
Mustard C, Lay M, Landsman V
IWH, in collaboration with Workplace Safety North, piloted a workplace questionnaire to measure perceptions of practices related to the internal responsibility system in Ontario's mining sector. This February 2017 presentation provides an overview of the development of the instrument, called the Internal Responsibility System Climate Assessment and Audit Tool (IRS CAAT), and the psychometric analysis of that instrument at four mining operations.
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Product guide
This guide to IWH resources points post-secondary students and instructors in occupational health and safety, disability management and/or work injury rehablitation to tools, guides and other information products from IWH that can help ensure evidence-based information is incorporated into research projects, essays, presentations, lessons and lectures.
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Product guide
This guide to IWH resources points ergonomists, kinesiologists and other workplace musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) prevention specialists to tools, guides and information products from IWH that can help ensure evidence-based information is incorporated into MSD prevention policies and practices.
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Product guide
This guide to IWH resources points occupational health and safety, disablity management and rehabilitation practitioners to tools, guides and other information products from IWH that can help ensure evidence-based information is incorporated into policies and practices to prevent work injury, illness and disability.
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Accomplishments Report
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Activity Plan
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Research Highlights
The differing levels of work activity limitations among women and men are explained by the different chronic conditions they are likely to have and the different physical demands they are likely to face on the job.
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Tools and guides
This guide provides simple explanations of over 35 common research terms used in the health and social sciences to help users of research better understand what scientists mean when they report their findings.
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Project report
Kosny A, Lifshen M, Tonima S, Yanar B, Russell E, MacEachen E, Neis B, Koehoorn M, Beaton DE, Furlan AD, Cooper J
Health-care providers play an important role in the return to work of injured workers, yet research suggests they sometimes struggle with this responsibility. This report shares the findings of a study on health-care providers' experiences in return to work and in working with workers' compensation systems. It also suggests practices and policies that may help clarify the role of health-care providers and make workers’ compensation systems easier to navigate for all stakeholders.
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Project report
Kosny A, Lifshen M, Tonima S, Yanar B, Russell E, MacEachen E, Neis B, Koehoorn M, Beaton DE, Furlan AD, Cooper J
Health-care providers play an important role in the return to work of injured workers, yet research suggests they sometimes struggle with this responsibility. This executive summary provides an overview of the findings of a study on health-care providers' experiences in return to work and in working with workers' compensation systems.
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Impact case study
The IWH Organizational Performance Metric (IWH-OPM) helps WorksafeBC act on a review recommendation to assess safety culture in the province's workplaces.
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Impact case study
Despite a strong OHS record, construction and facilities management company sees benefit of learning more through use of IWH's OHS Vulnerability Measure.
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Impact case study
Four factors that predict how long injured workers will remain off work are incorporated into new case management model at Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.
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Impact case study
Ten years after it took part in a participatory ergonomics study, Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro's change team was still going strong.
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Issue Briefing
This Issue Briefing provides highlights of IWH's body of evidence on "vulnerable" workers, tracking how our research has evolved from vulnerability being associated with those who are new to a job to those who are exposed to hazards with inadequate awareness, protective policies and/or empowerment.
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Sharing Best Evidence
Upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) include painful conditions and injuries of the muscles, tendons, joints and nerves that affect the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands. This update of a previous systematic review sets out to find occupational health and safety (OHS) interventions that effectively prevent and manage upper extremity MSDs.
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Impact case study
A new way of thinking about "vulnerable workers" makes inroads with Ontario's Ministry of Labour and its partners.
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Annual Report
Twenty Five Years of Making a Difference: The Institute for Work & Health's 2015 Annual Report
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Project report
Tompa E, Kalcevich C, McLeod CB, Lebeau M, Fong D, McLeod K, Kim J, Demers P
This June 2016 presentation provides an early look at the results of an economic burden study on the costs to Canadian society of new cases of lung cancers and mesothelioma attributable to occupational asbestos exposures in a particular year.
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5 Things We Think You Should Know
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Issue Briefing
In 2011, an IWH Issue Briefing summed up research on the adequacy of earnings replacement benefits for injured workers with permanent impairments in Ontario and B.C. This update looks at more recent cohorts, after major changes in Ontario’s workers’ compensation legislation.
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