Past events

8 Dec 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Stealth ergonomics: Incorporating MSD prevention into organizations' goals and systems

Richard Wells, Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD)

The prevention of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) has often been treated as a purely occupational health and safety issue. While this approach has made gains over the past few decades, more can be done. Ergonomics has the dual goals of improving both wellbeing and performance. In this plenary, Dr. Richard Wells shows how both MSD and poor product quality share many risk factors, and by addressing organizational goals of quality within an organizations’ management systems, MSD prevention can result in additional resources, effectiveness and sustainability.

1 Dec 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Staying at work with fibromyalgia

Margaret Oldfield, University of Toronto and University Health Network

Staying at work with chronic illness can be difficult. But it's especially so for those with fibromyalgia, a condition that carries considerable stigma. In this plenary, Dr. Margaret Oldfield shares her research on how women with fibromyalgia, along with their family members and co-workers, manage others' perception to avoid stigma and remain at work. She also discusses implications of her findings on workplace practices and policies.

17 Nov 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Can "flexicurity" policies protect workers from the adverse health consequences of temporary employment?

Faraz Vahid Shahidi, University of Toronto

"Flexicurity" policies represent a relatively novel approach to the regulation of work and welfare that aims to combine labour market flexibility with social security. Advocates of this approach argue that, by striking the right balance between these two components, such policies can protect workers from the adverse health and social consequences of flexible employment. In this plenary, Faraz Vahid Shahidi presents his study, which uses data from the European Social Survey to test the theory of flexicurity, with a focus on health inequalities between temporary workers and their permanent counterparts.

27 Oct 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Incorporating MSD prevention into management systems

Amin Yazdani, University of Waterloo

Musculoskeletal prevention (MSD) programs are seldom integrated into broader management system frameworks. This disconnect can result in poor sustainability and weak management buy-in. In this plenary, Dr. Amin Yazdani makes the case for the integration of MSD prevention into organization's management systems and examines harmonized approaches and tools that can bring MSD prevention "to the table."

20 Oct 2015

IWH Speaker Series

A "stages of change" approach to implementing MSD prevention

Paul Rothmore, University of Adelaide

Our knowledge of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) has increased substantially in recent years. But even when workplace interventions designed to prevent MSDs are developed, they are of little use if not properly implemented. In this plenary, Paul Rothmore discusses how implementation could be improved with a better understanding of the process of behaviour change. He shares the latest research on what's called a "stages of change" approach and ways it can be incorporated into the development of workplace interventions.

29 Sep 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Understanding return to work in MSD claims versus psychological injuries, for younger workers versus older workers

Peter Smith, Institute for Work & Health

What are the unique return-to-work challenges facing injured workers at the age of 55 and older? What about the challenges facing those with psychological injuries? Drawing on preliminary findings from a large-scale longitudinal cohort study in Victoria, Australia, IWH Senior Scientist Dr. Peter Smith discusses the differences in return-to-work by age group and by type of injury—and the implications for workers' compensation systems that were designed for worker demographics and work injuries that were very different from today's.

22 Sep 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Preventing injury among caregivers

Whether they are healthcare workers or family members providing care, caregivers are injured at alarming rates. And increasingly, the greatest challenges are seen in the home environment, as hospital care gives way to home care. In this plenary, Dr. Tilak Dutta joins Tara Kajaks to share research on reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injury in caregivers. This research is aimed at identifying activities that place caregivers at greatest risk of injury, developing new tools for caregivers that reduce the risk of injury and developing new methods of training and coaching caregiver on safe work.

8 Sep 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Systematic review of qualitative literature on OHS legislation and regulatory enforcement

Ellen MacEachen, Institute for Work & Health

In tandem with a systematic review on the quantitative literature on occupational health and safety (OHS) regulatory enforcement, this systematic review by Dr. Ellen MacEachen and her team looks at the qualitative literature on how OHS laws are planned and implemented. Qualitative studies are particularly useful for providing context—whether social, legal, economic or otherwise—to help explain events. In this plenary, Dr. MacEachen discusses how the implementation of OHS laws is shaped by ideas around "general duty" laws, coordination between agencies, worker participation in injury prevention, among others.

14 Jul 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Work-related road safety: looking beyond the role of drivers

Sharon Newnam, Monash University, Australia

Organizational context plays a key role in the safety of work-related drivers. To improve driving behaviour, it is necessary to look beyond individuals’ compliance with safety procedures and at the influence of workplace factors, supervisors and senior management. In this presentation, Dr. Sharon Newnam talks about a research program on workplace road safety that addresses these inter-linked contexts and describes interventions designed to mitigate driving risk.

24 Jun 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Work and mental health: capturing natural experiments with longitudinal datasets

Anthony LaMontagne, Deakin University

Mental health problems among workers are a growing concern, but there is a dearth of intervention studies on this issue, whether due to long timelines, high costs, or other feasibility challenges. In this presentation, Dr. Tony LaMontagne describes epidemiological methods to capture changes in work, working conditions and associated changes in mental health. He makes the case that capturing natural experiments in such a way offers a valuable and efficient complement to experimental studies.

16 Jun 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Using knowledge transfer principles in ergonomic tool development for firefighters and paramedics

Kathryn E. Sinden, McGill University

Developing workplace ergonomic solutions, such as physical demands analyses (PDAs), physical demand descriptions (PDDs) and physical employment screens, requires collaboration and mutual consensus among all workplace parties. Involving all stakeholders in the process can be challenging, particularly when there are potentially conflicting viewpoints. In this presentation, registered kinesiologist Dr. Kathryn Sinden discusses how using integrated knowledge translation, informed by the Knowledge-to-Action Framework, can be useful in developing a PDA/PDD for firefighters and a physical employment screen for paramedics.

2 Jun 2015

IWH Speaker Series

The network secrets of great change agents

Tiziana Casciaro, University of Toronto

Change is hard, especially in a large organization. However, some leaders do succeed—often spectacularly—at transforming their workplaces. What makes them able to exert this sort of influence when the vast majority can’t? A team led by Dr. Tiziana Casciaro set out to gain that insight by focusing on organizations in which size, complexity, and tradition make it exceptionally difficult to achieve reform. In this plenary, she shares what she discovered were the predictors of change agents’ success.

5 May 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Systematic review of the effectiveness of OHS regulatory enforcement

Emile Tompa, Institute for Work & Health

How effective are regulatory inspections and other forms of enforcement in improving health and safety at workplaces? In this plenary, Dr. Emile Tompa shares results from a systematic review guided by this question. He also discusses the research evidence on awareness campaigns, smoking bans, and inspections backed up by the threat of penalties.

28 Apr 2015

IWH Speaker Series

A scoping review of Clinical Decision Support tools for managing disabling MSDs

Ivan Steenstra, Institute for Work & Health

Front-line employees in health care and workers’ compensation frequently make challenging decisions about the most appropriate treatments for injured workers to help facilitate return-to-work. Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tools are designed to inform these decisions based on individual worker characteristics. In this plenary, Dr. Ivan Steenstra outlines the existing literature on these tools and examines the extent to which research evidence supports their use.

21 Apr 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Improving the effectiveness of joint health and safety committees (JHSCs)

Linn Holness, Centre for Research Expertise in Occupational Disease

An evidence-based assessment tool has been developed to help joint health and safety committees (JHSCs) establish improvement goals and ensure sustained effectiveness. In this plenary, Dr. Linn Holness shares the research behind the 21-item tool and discusses how this study, conducted in a health-care setting, could have application across Canadian workplaces.

14 Apr 2015

IWH Speaker Series

An occupational hazard exposure index for economic sectors in Ontario

Cameron Mustard, Institute for Work & Health

Can a measure be created to indicate how the risk of work-related injury and illness differs from sector to sector? In this plenary, Dr. Cameron Mustard, senior scientist and president of the Institute for Work & Health, shares the research findings and research methods behind the development of an occupational hazard exposure index for 56 sectors in Ontario.

7 Apr 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Assessing the validity of the IWH-OPM: Workplace case studies

Basak Yanar, Odette School of Business, University of Windsor

Workplaces and jurisdictions are looking for valid, reliable and practical indicators of occupational health and safety (OHS) performance. In light of this, OHS professionals from prevention system partners in Ontario, in collaboration with the Institute for Work & Health (IWH), developed a leading indicator known as the IWH Organizational Performance Metric (IWH-OPM). Prior testing of the eight-item IWH-OPM suggests it has acceptable internal consistency and structural validity, and is also predictive of future OHS performance (as measured by claims rates). In this plenary, Dr. Basak Yanar, a researcher and lecturer in organizational behaviour at the University of Windsor, reports on a further qualitative study of the IWH-OPM that contributes to the ongoing analysis of its measurement properties. The construct validity of the IWH-OPM was examined through case studies in five organizations, comparing the item and scale scores with observational and interview data on OHS performance. Results indicate good construct validity; that is, organizations that scored high on the scale also had the best OHS practices compared to those that scored lower on the scale.

31 Mar 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Systematic review of the quantitative literature on RTW interventions

Emma Irvin, Institute for Work & Health; Kim Cullen, Institute for Work & Health

In 2004, the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) published a mixed-method systematic review on workplace‐based return‐to‐work (RTW) interventions. Recently, IWH and the Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) in Australia worked together to update and expand this review to include system-level or jurisdictional interventions and mental illness. In this plenary, IWH's Emma Irvin and Kim Cullen discuss the latest findings and what they mean to the practice of evidence-based return to work.

10 Mar 2015

IWH Speaker Series

A toolkit approach to managing the risks of musculoskeletal disorders

Jodi Oakman, Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors, La Trobe University, Australia

One key aspect of the research program at the Centre for Ergonomics and Human Factors is the development and evaluation of a "toolkit" for managing the risks of musculoskeletal injuries and disorders (MSDs). In this plenary, program coordinator Dr. Jodi Oakman presents this toolkit, a survey-based tool for assessing risk from both manual handling and psychosocial hazards. She also shares findings about the MSD hazard profiles across three industry sectors—manufacturing, warehousing and health-care—and discusses implications for workplace management of MSD risks.

3 Mar 2015

IWH Speaker Series

Organizing for safety and reliability

Marlys Christianson, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

High reliability organizations are those with the potential for catastrophic failure, yet are nearly error-free in performance. Think aircraft carriers, electrical power grids or wildland firefighting crews. What lessons can these types of organizations, which are amply discussed in high-risk industries, offer to more conventional workplaces? In this plenary, organizational behaviour assistant professor Dr. Marlys Christianson details practices used by these organizations to address emerging problems—including some that may seem counterintuitive.