Return to work, accommodation and support

Published: BMJ Open, September 2021

The coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected plenty of employees. But for those with physical or mental health challenges, a lack of support on the job has exacerbated the issues. John Dujay reports on a study conducted by Dr. Monique Gignac of the Institute for Work and Health (IWH).

Published: Canadian HR Reporter, August 2021

People with both physical and mental health disabilities were the most concerned about their work, health and finances during the early part of the pandemic.

Published: July 2021

Young adults with rheumatic diseases have generally faced greater challenges in the job market than their healthy peers. That was why an IWH research team set out to examine their work experiences during the pandemic.

Published: June 2021

Published: Disability and Health Journal, June 2021

Published: Journal of Sleep Research, June 2021

Published: Occupational Health Science, June 2021

Building on IWH's original Ontario Life After Work Injury Study (OLAWIS), IWH is looking in particular at the long-term outcomes of people who were recovering and returning to work during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Status: Completed 2023

There's no simple "yes" or "no" answer to the question, “Should I tell my employer I have a chronic condition that sometimes makes it hard to work?” At the Institute for Work & Health, researchers have been working to develop a research-based decision-making tool. In one of the studies conducted to support the tool’s evidence base, the team explored people’s reasons for disclosing their episodic condition and found they do matter to the support they get, writes Dr. Monique Gignac.

Published: Rehab & Community Care, April 2021

Many workers’ compensation agencies across Canada have begun accepting claims for chronic mental stress that results from work. In other jurisdictions where psychological claims have been accepted, such types of claims have been linked with greater costs and longer time off compared to physical claims. The potential reasons for these differences have not been well understood. In this IWH Speaker Series presentation, Dr. Peter Smith presents findings from a cohort study of 869 workers’ compensation claimants in the Australian state of Victoria. He highlights differences between the two groups of claimants (psychological and musculoskeletal) in their experiences of the claim and return-to-work processes, and discusses lessons for Canadian jurisdictions.

Published: April 2021