Leading OHS indicators
Occupational health and safety (OHS) leading indicators are performance measures that help predict injuries and illnesses, allowing workplaces and system partners to gauge an organization’s health and safety climate, safety culture and OHS performance before injuries and illnesses occur. Their opposite is lagging indicators such as injury and claims rates, which measure performance based on injuries and illnesses that have already occurred. IWH research focuses on finding and validating the measures that will accurately gauge the likelihood of an organization’s future OHS performance, as well as the best way to use leading indicators to prevent future work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths.
Featured
![Overhead view of two people in safety helmets walking up the stairs in a plant](/sites/iwh/files/styles/bootstrap_6_col_wide/public/iwh/images/two_coworkers_stairs_helmet_plant.jpg?h=29c537a8&itok=pqCqL89g)
At Work article
IWH tool comes out ahead in Australian study of OHS leading indicator tools
In an Australian study of five health and safety leading indicator tools around the world, a measure developed by IWH has come out ahead for its ability to pick up workers’ risk of reporting a physical injury or a near miss at work.
Published: February 7, 2023
![Construction work on the new Victoria Bridge in downtown Saskatoon](/sites/iwh/files/styles/bootstrap_6_col_wide/public/iwh/images/saskatchewan_construction_bridge.jpg?h=f4303b19&itok=r9VZ0j2s)
Impact case study
Saskatchewan’s construction safety group uses IWH’s safety culture tool to measure OHS among member employers
Needing a tool to measure the OHS performance of its members firms, the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association turned to the Institute's easy-to-use, eight-item IWH-OPM.
Published: November 25, 2022
At Work article
At Work article
Prevention team develops tool to measure leading indicators
There may be a time in the near future where a simple tool may help predict a firm’s future injury experience – and help to focus health and safety efforts.
Published: July 2010
Project
Project
IWH Organizational Performance Metric: Developing and evaluating a simple workplace OHS tool
Status: Completed 2018
At Work article
At Work article
Safety climate has “great potential” in reducing workplace injury rates
There has been growing interest in the use of safety climate in injury prevention. The Institute is involved in several areas of research on safety climate
Published: August 2007
At Work article
At Work article
Safety climate shows promise in injury prevention
Although workplace injury rates have declined in recent years across Canada, workers are still hurt on the job every day. One approach that shows great promise is when organizations adopt practices to strengthen their safety climate
Published: April 2007
Project