Illness/injury prevention
IWH has a long history of conducting research to provide practical guidance to employers, workers, OHS professionals and regulators about what works and what doesn’t in injury or illness prevention. This research targets the injury and illness prevention practices of workplaces, as well as the programs developed by governments, health and safety associations and others to support and motivate workplaces to adopt effective practices.
Featured
IWH Speaker Series
New business owners on why and how OHS starts to matter
Published: October 27, 2026
Research Highlights
Rises in opioid harms highest in machining, construction, sales
A new study has found that opioid harm rates have increased among injured workers over the last two decades. The study also breaks the trends down by occupation.
Published: October 14, 2026
Journal article
Journal article
Larger workplaces, people-oriented culture, and specific industry sectors are associated with co-occurring health protection and wellness activities
Published: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, December 2018
Impact case study
Safety culture framework in Manitoba incorporates IWH expertise, tools
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.
Published: November 2018
At Work article
Slight improvements seen in workplace psychosocial conditions over 10 years
How have psychosocial work conditions changed in Canada over a 10-year time frame? Data from Statscan surveys suggest a slight improvement, but the IWH researchers behind the analysis are cautious in their interpretations.
Published: November 2018
At Work article
Calculating the costs of employers’ work-related injury prevention efforts in Ontario
You often hear OHS professionals and advocates talk about the costs of work-related injuries. But what about the costs of preventing the injuries? An IWH research team recently set out to calculate employer OHS investments in Ontario.
Published: November 2018
Journal article
Journal article
The effect of active and passive occupational health and safety (OHS) training on OHS awareness and empowerment to participate in injury prevention among workers in Ontario and British Columbia (Canada)
Published: Safety Science, October 2018
Issue Briefing
What do employers spend to protect the health and safety of workers?
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.
Published: September 2018
Journal article
Journal article
The economic burden of occupational non-melanoma skin cancer due to solar radiation
Published: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, September 2018
Journal article
Journal article
Occupational health and safety vulnerability of recent immigrants and refugees
Published: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, September 2018
IWH in the media
Women in education sector at greater risk of workplace violence
Women working in Ontario’s education sector are four to six times more likely than their male counterparts to require time off work because of being physically assaulted on the job, reports the Canadian Occupational Safety.
Published: Canadian Occupational Safety, August 2018
Research Highlights
OHS vulnerability among new immigrants
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.
Published: August 2018