Cost and benefits
Questions about costs and benefits sometimes matter to practitioners and policy-makers in occupational health and safety and disability management. Economic evaluation studies at IWH calculate the costs and benefits of injury, illness and disability prevention programs, both workplace-based and at the systems level. Findings from these studies, and discussions about how and what to measure in economic evaluations, are pulled together here.
Featured
IWH Speaker Series
Estimating the financial benefits of OHS spending: a study of Ontario employers
Published: February 14, 2023
IWH Speaker Series
Development and implementation of a framework for estimating the economic benefits of an accessible and inclusive society
Published: February 8, 2022
Journal article
Journal article
The economic burden of bladder cancer due to occupational exposure
Published: Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, March 2018
Project
Project
Costs of work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths in the European Union
Status: Completed 2019
At Work article
Study update: New cases of mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancer from one year cost $2.35B
What's the economic burden of mesothelioma and lung cancers due to work-related asbestos? An IWH team calculated the costs from just one year's worth of such cases.
Published: November 2017
IWH in the media
Injury and wellness: what are employers spending on prevention?
What workplace injuries and illnesses cost in Ontario is evident, but what do Ontario employers spend on prevention? That’s a question the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) is attempting to answer with a pilot study that’s underway. Dr. Cameron Mustard shared some of the early results.
Published: Plant, August 2017
IWH in the media
Construction among highest spending sectors to prevent work-related injuries
The construction sector is in the top five of 17 sectors in terms of spending per worker per year on preventing work-related injury and illness, says the president and senior scientist at the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) who is conducting a pilot study on the matter
Published: Daily Commercial News, May 2017
Project
Project
Evaluating prevention strategies to reduce the risk of work-related cancers in Ontario’s construction sector
An IWH study is estimating future incidences cancers among construction workers in Ontario as a result of workplace exposures, and estimating the costs and benefits of intervention programs to reduce these exposures.
Status: Completed 2021
Project
Project
Financial incentives to promote employment of people with disabilities: when and how they work best
Funding for financial incentives to promote the employment of people with disabilities is substantial. Therefore, it's important to know when and how these incentives work best.
Status: Ongoing
IWH in the media
Bill introduced to end asbestos use in the province
Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey is calling on Ontario to ban asbestos, a substance that has had a deadly impact in his community. “In my riding of Sarnia-Lambton, there are many, many families who have buried loved one because of the mesothelioma they developed from exposure to asbestos while at work,” Bailey said. Paul Morden reports in an article that cites Institute for Work & Health research on the burden of asbestos.
Published: Sarnia Observer, December 2016
At Work article
New cases of mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancer in one year cost $1.9B
First-ever estimate of the economic burden of asbestos looks at newly diagnosed cases in Canada in 2011.
Published: August 2016
IWH in the media
Asbestos-related cancers cost Canada $2B
Canada spends about $1.7 billion annually on asbestos-related cancers stemming from occupational exposure, according to a recent Institute for Work & Health study.
Published: Asbestos.com, June 2016