IWH in the media

“Work is pretty much the only environment where people tend to stand for prolonged periods of time.” So said IWH's Dr. Peter Smith in an article by Em Cassel on the negative health effects of working on one's feet all day long.

Are work injury claims in B.C. being suppressed, under-claimed or misrepresented? The Institute for Work and Health (IWH) recently collaborated with Prism Economics and Analysis to conduct a study to find out. They concluded the rate of claim suppression of work-related injury or disease in B.C. is in the range of 3.7 to 13 per cent. They also found that the incidence of claim suppression appears to be higher where the employer has created a bonus plan that rewards employees keep a workplace incident-free.

Too many small workplaces do not have adequate occupational health and safety (OHS) tools available to keep their workers safe. Don Wall interviews Dr. Cameron Mustard, Institute for Work & Health president, who says it’s time for Ontario to redouble its efforts to ensure the province’s small employers conduct business in healthy and safe environments.

Young workers who are immunocompromised will need employers to continue to enforce COVID-19-prevention strategies. And paid sick leave will remain a priority to prevent workers from coming to work with COVID-19 symptoms, writes IWH's Dr. Arif Jetha in an op-ed.

When workers suffer from chronic stress or other mental illnesses related to their work, many organizations are at a loss. So, too, are workers’ compensation systems and health-care providers, according to an study conducted by IWH and Monash University. We need to change the way we view, respond to, and accommodate these conditions, writes Dr. Peter Smith in an op/ed.

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.

Workers who reported using cannabis before or during a shift – including supervisors and people in safety-sensitive jobs – had jobs and work environments in which detection was less likely, according to the results of a recent study out of Canada.

The union safety effect is real — at least in Ontario’s major construction sector, writes John Dujay in reporting on research findings from IWH Scientist Dr. Lynda Robson

The response of employers to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a mixed bag. As the economy reopens, employers face new challenges navigating health and productivity pitfalls when bringing workers back to physical premises. The National Basketball Association’s experiences returning to the hard court last season was a well-publicized achievement. IWH Scientist Dr. Arif Jetha and Public Health Ontario's Dr. Brendan Smith list four important lessons from the NBA for employers on how to return employees to the workplace during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labour activists in Quebec and Ontario say more transparency is needed around COVID-19 outbreaks in warehouses and factories, writes the Canadian Press's Jacob Serebrin, with comments from IWH President Dr. Cameron Mustard.