Health and safety training

This mixed-methods study seeks to evaluate hazard awareness training delivered by Workplace Safety North to up to 10 workplaces. Workplace Safety North is a Health and Safety Association funded by the province of Ontario, with a focus on businesses in Northern Ontario.

Status: Ongoing

In what was described as a strategic, provincewide collaboration, the WSIB has partnered with Workplace Safety North (WSN) and the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) to lead a proactive campaign aimed at enhancing hygiene monitoring practices and reducing exposure to harmful workplace hazards. The initiative, spearheaded by WSN, is to focus on high-risk sectors such as mining and forestry, where workers continue to face some of the highest rates of occupational illness fatalities in Ontario. WSN has developed a suite of specialized training materials and will work directly with employers and workers through hands-on coaching and real-time use of hygiene monitoring equipment. The IWH will support the initiative by applying its expertise in health and safety research to assess the effectiveness of the training programs and their impact on improving worker safety.

Published: Sudbury.com, May 2025

On Day 1 of the Mining Health and Safety Conference in Sudbury, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board announced $6.78 million to protect workers in Ontario’s natural resources sectors, to be conducted by Workplace Safety North and the Institute for Work and Health, Lyndsay Aelick reports.

Published: CTV News, April 2025

Online formats for occupational health and safety (OHS) training have gained popularity in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. But are they as effective as in-person training? An IWH study compared online and in-person OHS training programs to measure differences in knowledge retention and whether learners felt they would use the knowledge they gained.

Published: April 2025

Published: American Journal of Industrial Medicine, April 2025

Competent and supportive supervisors can help reduce injuries experienced by workers, especially when supervisors are properly trained, states article that cites research by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH). It found that workers most likely to suffer an injury were those who reported that their supervisors were unaware of hazards and/or didn’t provide reasonable protection.

Published: Workers Health & Safety Centre, March 2025

Published: American Journal of Public Health, January 2024

An IWH study on the effectiveness of Ontario's mandatory training was helpful to the labour ministry in several ways—including in reinforcing the value of program evaluations.

Published: November 2023

Among recent organized efforts to make jobsites safer, working-at-heights training has been effective, reports an Institute for Work & Health (IWH) study. As Adam Freill reports, in the three-year period after Ontario made working-at-heights training in the construction sector standardized and mandatory, study authors explain that the rate of fall-from-height injuries leading to time off work fell by 19 per cent.

Published: On-Site Magazine, November 2023

Published: November 2023