Dr. Peter Smith
Dr. Peter Smith is president and senior scientist at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto, and a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Prior to moving into the president's role in January 2022, Smith was IWH's scientific co-director.
Smith has a master's in public health from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a PhD from the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto. He is a former recipient of a New Investigator Award (2008-2013) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR),a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council (2012-2014), and a five-year CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health (2014-2018).
Smith has extensive experience conducting research related to work injury and its consequences using large population-based surveys and administrative workers' compensation data. His key research interests include: gender and sex differences in the relationship between work and health; labour market inequalities and their health-related outcomes; labour market experiences of newcomers, older workers, younger workers and other vulnerable labour force subgroups; chronic illnesses and work injury; and trends in working conditions over time.
“I don’t understand how people can think about health without thinking about work. Between our early 20s and our 60s – and later for some people – we spend most of our waking hours at work. It makes sense, then, that aspects of work must have an impact on different aspects of our health, both positively and negatively. That drives me to better understand what good work and bad work look like from a health and return-to-work perspective.” – Dr. Peter Smith
Projects
- Ontario Life After Work Injury Study: Cannabis use and long-term recovery and return-to-work outcomes among Ontario injured workers. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Ongoing. (PI on the project)
- Ontario Life After Work Injury Study: Understanding the long-term recovery and labour market outcomes of injured workers in Ontario. Funded by Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario. Ongoing.
- Ontario Life After Work Injury Study: Understanding the long-term recovery and labour market outcomes of injured workers in the shadow of COVID-19. Funded by Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Ongoing.
- Project ECHO Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM): Implementation and evaluation. Funded by Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Ongoing.
- Toking 9 to 5: Workplace cannabis use and perceptions among Canadian workers. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Ongoing. (PI on the project)
Publications
- Orchard C, Lin E, Rosella L, Smith PM. Using unsupervised clustering approaches to identify common mental health profiles and associated mental healthcare service use patterns in Ontario, Canada. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2024;193(7):976-986. doi:10.1093/aje/kwae030.
- Mustard C, Orchard C, Dobson KG , Carnide N, Smith PM. The adequacy of workplace accommodation and the incidence of permanent employment separations after a disabling work injury or illness. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. 2024;50(3):208-217. doi:10.5271/sjweh.4149.
- Quinn TD, Lane A, Pettee Gabriel K, Sternfeld B, Jacobs Jr DR, Smith PM. Associations between occupational physical activity and left ventricular structure and function over 25 years in CARDIA. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. . 2024;31(4):425-433. doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwad349.
- Smith PM, Liao Q, Shahidi FV, Biswas A, Robson LS, Landsman V, Mustard C. Variation in occupational exposure risk for COVID-19 workers' compensation claims across pandemic waves in Ontario. Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 2024;81(4):171-177. doi:10.1136/oemed-2023-109243.
- Mustard C, Orchard C, Dobson KG , Carnide N, Smith PM. An observational study of pain severity, cannabis use, and benefit expenditures in work disability. Canadian Journal of Public Health. 2024;115(1):157-167. doi:10.17269/s41997-023-00821-1.
Speaker Series presentations
- Refining estimates of occupational exposures and risk of workplace COVID-19 transmission. IWH Speaker Series. January 16, 2024.
- Building on the past, looking to the future: Presenting the IWH Strategic Plan, 2023-27. IWH Speaker Series. May 23, 2023.
- Workplace COVID-19 protections and transmission: Findings from population-level data in Canada. IWH Speaker Series. October 19, 2021.
- Differences in the return-to-work process for work-related psychological and musculoskeletal conditions: findings from an Australian cohort. IWH Speaker Series. April 6, 2021.
- More than just COVID-19 prevention: Exploring the links between PPE, safe work protocols and workers' mental health. IWH Speaker Series. November 10, 2020.
Interviews and articles
- Study of educators during pandemic found psychosocial conditions worse for those teaching online. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 110, Fall 2022.
- Study raises concerns about popular psychosocial work survey. Canadian HR Reporter. June 23, 2022. Available from: https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/people-analytics/study-raises-concerns-about-popular-psychosocial-work-survey/367668
- What research can do: IWH input contributes to enhancement of WSIB’s Health and Safety Index. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 108, Spring 2022.
- Widely used survey lacks ability to tell apart 13 distinct psychosocial work factors. At Work: Institute for Work & Health; No. 108, Spring 2022.
- Host of symptoms, variable recovery times complicate return to work for those with long COVID. CBC Radio - The Current. February 2, 2022. Available from: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-jan-21-2022-1.6322837/host-of-symptoms-variable-recovery-times-complicate-return-to-work-for-those-with-long-covid-1.6333734