Return to work, accommodation and support

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, October 2025

Researchers and knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) staff at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) put a lot of focus on how to tap into partner expertise to refine research goals and facilitate the sharing and uptake of research findings. What does that look like in practice? This article illustrates how a seven-year partnership project used IWH’s approach to KTE to develop and share usable outputs from the research findings.

Published: September 2025

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, September 2025

A new online tool from Canada’s Institute for Work and Health is intended to help people consider whether to disclose personal health information at work. The free Decision-Support for Communicating about Invisible Disabilities that are Episodic (DCIDE) provides personalized guidance for people grappling with disclosure questions.

Published: Safety+Health, August 2025

The seven-year partnership project, titled Accommodating and Communicating about Episodic Disabilities (ACED), showcases the role partner organizations can play in developing user-friendly research products and in disseminating these products more widely. The partnership enhanced both the quality of the research and the partners’ ability to serve their clients.

Published: August 2025

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, August 2025

An IWH study has found that Ontario health-care providers face a range of challenges when treating workers with a work-related injury or illness and helping them return to work—from communication issues with compensation boards to the complexities of working with multiple parties. The researchers also found that a telementoring program called ECHO Occupational Environmental Medicine helped providers overcome some of these challenges.

Published: July 2025

First responders commonly experience occupational injuries, particularly post-traumatic stress injuries (PTSIs), which encompass symptoms of anxiety-, mood- or trauma-related disorders. PTSI can negatively affect the lives of first responders, including reducing work performance; increasing absence at work; raising the likelihood of burnout, sleep difficulties, poorer relationships with others, feelings of hopelessness, self-harm and suicidal behaviors; and leading to higher risks of disability and early mortality. This summary is based on an Institute for Work & Health study that focused on organizational policies and practices in first responder organizations that can help prevent PTSI work disability.

Published: June 2025

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, May 2025

Workers with a work-related physical injury that takes them off the job can have a wide range of mental health experiences, beyond diagnosable conditions. That’s according to an IWH study which also found that differences in workers’ mental health after an injury were linked to return-to-work outcomes. Those reporting both a mental health condition and the poorest wellbeing had longer, more expensive compensation claims.

Published: April 2025