Partnership news

May 2022: Co-director Chris McLeod presented findings showing COR leads to safer workplaces at the Ontario General Contractors Association’s annual Leadership Day, held May 6 in Vaughan, ON. Read more in the Journal of Commerce.

April 2022: Canadian workers compensation boards reported that 924 workers died due to work-related causes in 2020. Authored by Sean Tucker and Anya Keefe, this report provides a jurisdictional comparison of work-related injury and fatality rates in Canada between 2016 and 2020 using data from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC).

April 2022: April 28 is National Day of Mourning in remembrance of workers who lost their live to workplace injury and disease this year. A ceremony will be held on April 2 at 10:30 am at Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver. Watch our co-director Chris McLeod’s message.

April 2022: A multidisciplinary team of researchers from PWHS and the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (CGSHE) received funding from CIHR for a mixed-methods study that will critically assess the effect of COVID-19 policies on violence, bullying and harassment in the food and beverage service sector in BC.

April 2022: PWHS and the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity (CGSHE) are seeking (1) a Project Coordinator/Interviewer and (2) a Qualitative Research Lead/Interviewer to conduct a mixed-methods study that will critically assess the effect of COVID-19 policies on violence, bullying, and harassment in the BC food and beverage service sector. Please note that these positions closed on April 20, 2022.

February 2022: This scoping review examines barriers and facilitators to return-to-work in the construction industry. Findings suggest that work accommodations are possible but the physical nature and organization of labour present challenges for identifying suitable work. Evidence gaps include the role of unions, workers’ compensation systems, gender and industry-specific organizational characteristics in the return-to-work process. Read more in Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation.

February 2022: PhD student Kimberly Sharpe developed a framework that identifies predisposing, enabling, workplace environment and need-based factors that could lead to variation in health care spending and use across regions, offering a guide for researchers and policymakers to identify areas for improvement in health care delivery within work disability management systems. Read more in Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation.

January 2022: Using WorkSafeBC and Statistics Canada data for 2010-2017, we found that workers from out of province had lower workers’ compensation claim rates than those from within province, even after adjusting for sex, age, industry and year. Differences were largest among health care only claims and smallest among serious injury claims. Read more in American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

January 2022: We examined differences in work disability duration by firm size using data from five Canadian and five Australian workers’ compensation systems. Compared to large firms (200+ FTEs), workers in small firms (<20 FTEs) had longer work disability duration in all but one of the study jurisdictions, even after adjusting for a range of individual-level characteristics. Read more in Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation.

December 2021: Published in Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, this study examined the effectiveness of an integrated return-to-work (RTW) and vocational rehabilitation (VR) program on cumulative disability days paid to injured workers in the construction sector in Ontario. Findings suggest that the program reduced cumulative disability days paid to all claims but particularly long-duration claims referred to RTW specialists and short-duration claims referred to VR specialists.

December 2021: The results of graduate trainee Niloufar Saffari’s thesis work are published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Using a novel linkage of BC workers’ compensation claims and permanent resident data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Saffari et al found that both recent and established immigrants in BC experience more days of disability after work injury than Canadian-born workers.

November 2021: WorkSafeBC is seeking applicants for Research Training Awards, available to highly-qualified graduate students at the master’s and doctoral level, and for the Ralph McGinn Postdoctoral Fellowship competitions. These awards are designed to foster the development of occupational health and safety research expertise in BC.

November 2021: PWHS Co-Director Chris McLeod spoke about workplace health and safety with Rob Cook, VP of Health and Safety at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario, at a Celebration of Health and Safety on Nov. 25, 2021. Watch the recording (starts at 9:20).

November 2021: PWHS Co-director Chris McLeod and Leah Thomas-Olson, Client Partner – Ergonomics, Health and Safety, Fraser Health, will present on the health and productivity effects of working from home for Fraser Health employees at the UBC School of Population and Public Health OEH seminar on Friday Nov. 26 at 12:30 PST. More details

November 2021: PWHS postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sonja Senthanar and colleagues examined differences in disability duration after a work injury among immigrants compared to Canadian-born workers and found inequities in disability duration for immigrant workers, particularly economic and family class and women immigrants.