1. Selected topics

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
A healthcare worker in scrubs and a mask walks to work with her bag and phone in-hand.
Research Highlights

Workers with COVID-19 had better return-to-work rates than others during the pandemic

During the pandemic, workers who contracted COVID-19 from work had better return-to-work rates 18 months later than those with other conditions. Most traditional return-to-work factors, however, did not explain the difference in rates.
Published: July 14, 2026
A group of office workers high-fiving each other
At Work article

OHS champion has pivotal role in breakthrough change: study

IWH study of health and safety success stories shines light on the potential of individual change agent to create momentum for safer practices
Published: May 2014
Young man does sanding work at machine
Impact case study

WCB adapts toolkit for newcomers to Manitoba context

The toolkit, called Prevention is the Best Medicine, hopes to bridge the knowledge gap among newcomers of OHS and workers' compensation issues.
Published: April 2014
Overhead shot of welding workers
Impact case study

MOL broadens strategy for identifying poor OHS performers

IWH evaluation of high risk firm program confirms need for a redesign.
Published: April 2014
At Work article
At Work article

Non-academic OHS sources enrich systematic reviews

IWH review team also finds workload a challenge when including grey literature in systematic reviews
Published: February 2014
Illustrated concept of work team improving performance
Tools and guides

Breakthrough Change in OHS: Case study series

Each of four case studies tells the story of an Ontario organization that achieved firm-level, sustained improvement in health and safety performance. Each illustrates the factors critical to making large improvement in health and safety, based upon an evidence-based model of breakthrough change developed through Institute for Work & Health research.
Published: January 2014
Project
Project

Synthesizing and tailoring OHS knowledge for use in specific provincial and local contexts

In partnership with Memorial University’s SafetyNet Centre for Occupational safety & Health Research and the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, IWH developed and tested an innovative methodology for synthesizing current scientific workplace health, safety and disability prevention knowledge and tailoring it for use in specific provincial and local contexts.

Status: Completed 2017
Man stretches at computer work station
Impact case study

CAMH improves office ergonomics through IWH online training program

A piloted training program was so successful it's now offered to all staff at this hospital and research centre.
Published: November 2013
A helmeted worker sits on bench with laptop
Issue Briefing

Developing leading indicators of work injury and illness

Leading indicators have the potential to help identify factors affecting the risk of injury, allowing workplaces to address these factors before injuries occur. This Issue Briefing looks at efforts to date to identify OHS leading indicators and the challenges involved.
Published: October 2013
At Work article
At Work article

New Brunswick’s WorkSafeNB adopts IWH’s safety culture yardstick

Institute of Work & Health’s Organizational Performance Metric chosen after study shows firms’ scores on eight-item questionnaire correlate with claims rates
Published: July 2013
Project report
Project report

Assessment of the utility of WorkSafeNB's Internal Responsibility System Questionnaire and IWH's Organizational Performance Metric: public report

In 2010, WorkSafeNB asked the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) to assess its Internal Responsibility System Questionnaire (IRSQ), a survey tool it had developed to measure safety culture within an organization. As part of its assessment, IWH compared the IRSQ with another previously validated tool designed to measure leading indicators, called the IWH Organizational Performance Metric (IWH-OPM). This document reports on the assessment of these two tools.
Published: July 2013