Past events

28 Feb 2012

IWH Speaker Series

Reflecting on a program of participatory ergonomics interventions: A multiple case study

Richard Wells, University of Waterloo

To date, evaluations of participative ergonomics (PE) interventions have shown mixed results. In a multiple case study of four worksites in different companies, Dr. Wells' team examined process, implementation and effects of PE interventions. This study was based on fieldwork and interviews with 90 people. The team was able to introduce 10 to 21 changes over 10 to 20 months, despite some challenges. This plenary describes the research, which ultimately showed limited effects of PE interventions, and potential reasons that may account for this.

21 Feb 2012

IWH Speaker Series

Health and wellness of southern Ontario truck drivers

Transportation workers are more susceptible to chronic disease as a result of higher prevalence of selected risk factors, working conditions and certain lifestyle choices. Researchers conducted focus groups with drivers and trucking-firm managers to inform the development of health and wellness surveys administered to drivers in 13 transport companies in 2011. This plenary describes results of the focus groups and surveys, and outlines ongoing initiatives and collaborative directions that have come about from stakeholder strategic planning meetings. This research was jointly undertaken by McMaster University and the City of Hamilton’s Public Health Services.

31 Jan 2012

IWH Speaker Series

Repeat workers’ compensation claims

Jacob Etches, Institute for Work & Health

When examining workers’ compensation claims data, it is usually assumed that each claim represents an independent event. However, claimants often file repeatedly. Little is known about repeat claimants. This plenary discusses research into repeat claimants in several provinces.

24 Jan 2012

IWH Speaker Series

Pictograms development and evaluation project

Trevor King, Institute for Work & Health; Kim Grant, Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

This plenary outlines a collaborative effort between Workplace Safety and Prevention Services (WSPS), one of Ontario's health and safety associations, and the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) to develop a pictogram-based hazard identification system. The organizations worked together to develop and evaluate pictograms (i.e. visual symbols) and a corresponding training program for kitchen prep workers in restaurants across Ontario. The plenary details the pictogram and training development process and the following pilot study evaluation.

13 Dec 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Plastics and breast cancer: A lens on women working in the auto sector

Anne Rochon Ford, Canadian Women's Health Network

Anne Rochon Ford is leading the project "Women, Plastics and Breast Cancer National Network on Environments and Women's Health" at York University. In this plenary, she presents a 'snapshot' of recent studies that give rise to emerging health concerns for women workers in the auto sector, specifically plastics manufacturing. In particular, there are strong reasons to believe that there may be an elevated incidence of breast cancer and reproductive problems in women plastics workers. For the over 25,000 women plastics workers in the auto industry in southwestern Ontario, the stakes are high.

8 Nov 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Race, poverty and precariousness: Understanding the racialization of poverty in Canada

Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Ryerson University

In this presentation, Dr. Grace-Edward Galabuzi examines major trends in the labour market in the last 25 years, chief among them the growing gap between workers and the managerial/professional class. This gap is increasingly racialized. This is manifest in the analysis of income and employment data of racialized/immigrant and non-racialized/Canadian-born cohorts. Dr. Galabuzi discusses the impact on key aspects of life experience, such as disproportionate exposure to low income, differential health status and residential segregation. This comes at a time when racialized group members are projected to become a third of the Canadian population over the next 20 years.

27 Oct 2011

Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture

Research informing public policy: Workers’ compensation in California

Robert Reville, RAND

In this lecture Dr. Robert Reville, the leader of the permanent disability study and other studies on the performance of the California workers’ compensation system over this past decade, shows how research informed public policy. He also gives examples in the areas of improving return-to-work outcomes for disabled workers, the adequacy of benefits for workers experiencing permanent impairment and challenges in ensuring fairness in the adjudication of workers’ compensation benefits.

25 Oct 2011

IWH Speaker Series

The impact of job strain on the risk of depression

Peter Smith, Institute for Work & Health

In this presentation, Dr. Peter Smith discusses a recent project that considered the impact of changes in job strain on the risk of depression. More specifically, this research assessed the impact of changes in dimensions of the psychosocial work environment – job control, psychological demands, job strain and social support – on the risk of depression in a longitudinal cohort of 3,735 Canadians. Results of this analysis are presented and discussed in this plenary.

18 Oct 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Work injury risk by time of day in Ontario

Cameron Mustard, Institute for Work & Health; Andrea Chambers, Institute for Work & Health

In this presentation, Cam Mustard and Andrea Chambers provide a summary of the preliminary findings of a study that examined the incidence of work-related injury and illness in the Ontario labour force across the 24-hour clock. They also review the study methods. Two data sources were used (WSIB lost-time claims and records of non-scheduled visits to Ontario emergency departments), while information on hours worked was obtained from Statistics Canada sources.

27 Sep 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Regulatory action against bullying and harassment in the workplace in an international perspective: From research to policy

Katherine Lippel, University of Ottawa

The presentation explores various strategies in the development and implementation of regulation to address workplace bullying and harassment in developed and developing countries, while identifying strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches. The analysis includes reflections on the relationship between research and regulation and provides illustrations drawn from studies on occupational violence, gender issues and precarious employment.

12 Jul 2011

IWH Speaker Series

An economic evaluation of distance lifestyle counselling among overweight employees

Marieke van Wier, VU University Amsterdam

Marieke van Wier, a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Institute for Health and Care Research at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, discusses a study that compared the cost-effectiveness of three different forms of distance lifestyle counselling for overweight workers. An economic evaluation was conducted alongside a three-arm randomized controlled trial that compared the effectiveness of a six-month counselling program offered through self-help brochures, phone intervention or internet intervention, with a two-year time horizon. The internet intervention was found to be more effective for weight loss than self-help brochures alone, and at relatively the same cost. The phone intervention was not cost-effective compared with self-help brochures.

28 Jun 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Developing an Ontario strategy to prevent MSDs due to manual materials handling: Lessons learned from Australia

Jean Mangharam, WorkSafe, Western Australia

The Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD) is holding a discussion forum on Monday, June 27 on the development of an Ontario manual materials handling (MMH) program to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The forum is being organized in response to Ontario’s focus on high-impact claims and CRE-MSD's wish to be involved in the next version of Ontario's MSD strategy. The forum will include speakers from British Columbia, United States, United Kingdom and Australia, who will talk about efforts in their own jurisdictiosn to protect workers from injury related to MMH. Jean Mangharam, principal scientific officer/inspector of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Team at WorkSafe in Western Australia, is one of the speakers at the CRE-MSD discussion forum. At this plenary, which takes place the day after the forum, she will talk about Western Australia's experiences with the design, dissemination, workplace implementation and evaluation of a guidance on MMH, and the responses it received from workplace parties during the process. She will also give her impressions of the discussion forum and describe how the Australian experience can relate to the development of an Ontario strategy to prevent MSDs due to MMH.

14 Jun 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Labour force participation and health in people living with HIV

Sergio Rueda, Ontario HIV Treatment Network

This presentation discusses a body of research aimed at understanding the complex link between work and health in the context of HIV disease. Grounded in the study of causation hypothesis – i.e. employment leads to better health – this talk will draw from several studies that have used secondary data to examine the association between employment, job security and health-related quality of life. It presents baseline enrolment data from a community-based study designed to examine the health effects of employment transitions in HIV. This work acknowledges the difficulties inherent in analyzing data where the structure of benefit programs may create incentives for people with HIV to remain at work when their health is compromised (in order to maintain access to insurance) or disincentives to go back to work when their health improves (to avoid losing disability income or medication coverage).

13 Jun 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Breast cancer and shift work: mechanisms and measurement

Lin Fritschi, Western Australian Institute for Medical Research

In 2007, based on good evidence from mouse studies and limited evidence from epidemiological studies, IARC declared that shift work involving night work was a probable carcinogen (mainly regarding breast cancer). Since then, several studies on shift work and breast cancer have been released, which are less supportive of the association. In the epidemiological literature, the dominant hypothesis regarding the underlying mechanism for the association is that light at night suppresses melatonin, resulting in a diminution of the anti-carcinogenic effects. In this talk, Lin Fritschi, cancer epidemiologist and head of the Epidemiology Group at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research in Perth, will outline the framework that includes an additional four possible mechanisms. This framework has been used to design a questionnaire that can disentangle various aspects of shift work, in order to determine which of the mechanisms are most related to any effect. Fritschi's group is using this questionnaire in a current case-control study of breast cancer.

31 May 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Does radiating spinal pain determine future work disability?

Vicki Kristman, University of Toronto

Dr. Vicki Kristman from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto discusses a study that set out to determine if radiating spinal pain from the low back, mid back and neck is associated with future use of health-related benefits and their duration.

10 May 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Corporate social responsibility - The business case and self-regulation: Do they really work in achieving workplace safety?

Susan Hart, Memorial University

The political shift towards an economic liberalism in many developed market economies, emphasizing the importance of the marketplace rather than government intervention in the economy and society, has featured a prominent discourse focused on the need for business flexibility and competitiveness in a global economy. Alongside these developments has been an increasing pressure for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case for CSR – that corporations would benefit from voluntarily being socially responsible – was promoted by many governments and corporations as part of the justification for increasing self-regulation in public policy. This presentation examines more closely the proposition that the business case and self-regulatory frameworks work in achieving workplace safety.

3 May 2011

IWH Speaker Series

A national scan of safety resources for recent immigrants entering the Canadian workforce

Agnieszka Kosny, Institute for Work & Health; Marni Lifshen, Institute for Work & Health

In this presentation, Dr. Agnieszka Kosny and Marni Lifshen talk about a project that examined the services, programs and resources available to newcomers to Canada that focus on employment standards, occupational health and safety and workers’ compensation. They discuss trends in the types of resources available, identify important gaps, and highlight case studies of programs that present interesting opportunities for providing this information to newcomers.

26 Apr 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Health care and WSIB challenges for temporary foreign workers

Janet McLaughlin, International Migration Research Centre, Wilfred Laurier University

Approximately 30,000 migrant farm workers come to Canada annually through two federal temporary labour migration programs. Working in one of the country’s most dangerous industries, such workers often find themselves in precarious positions. Health concerns are common. Numerous issues, such as their temporary work and immigration status, language and cultural differences, vulnerable employment positions, dependency on employers to access services and high levels of mobility, pose challenges to accessing health-care and workers’ compensation systems. This plenary will present preliminary findings from an ongoing research project, funded by the WSIB, that is interviewing 100 primarily male migrant farm workers in Ontario about their experiences with workplace health and safety. The research also features dozens of interviews with stakeholders such as employers, health-care providers, worker advocates and WSIB representatives, as well as 30 in-depth case studies of injured workers.

13 Apr 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Job acquisition for people with severe mental disorders enrolled in supported employment programs

Marc Corbière, University of Sherbrooke School of Rehabilitation

Job acquisition for people with severe mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) is still difficult and complex, yet it is considered by many rehabilitation specialists to be a key component in the recovery and rehabilitation of this clientele. Several authors have presented a comprehensive list of barriers or facilitators for people with mental disorders to explain their work integration, including not only individual or internal characteristics, but also programmatic characteristics. This presentation portrays the underlying relationships between the personal concepts that explain the work integration of people with severe mental disorders and, thus, evaluate the strength of variance explained by each concept analyzed in the model (the theory of planned behaviour and self-efficacy theory) and evaluates the salient components in supported employment programs according to perspectives from employment specialists and clients.

29 Mar 2011

IWH Speaker Series

Effect of case management on time to return to work: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Jason Busse, Institute for Work & Health

Case management is increasingly used to oversee incoming claims accepted for wage-replacement benefits; however, there is no standard definition of what constitutes case management, and the impact on return to work is uncertain. IWH Scientist Dr. Jason Busse and his team recently conducted a systematic review of all randomized controlled trials that have assessed case management. At this plenary, Busse will discuss the different forms of case management that have been formally assessed, and present a meta-analysis describing the effect that case management has on return to work for patients in receipt of disability benefits.