Health and safety programs and regulations

In brief

• Occupational health and safety interventions, including regulatory approaches, programs, and management systems, are key strategies for reducing worker injury and illness. Examples include inspections, citations and penalties; the requirement for firms to have joint labour and management health and safety committees and/or to conduct routine hazard assessment; and the implementation of integrated health and safety management systems.

In BC

• PhD trainee Kim McLeod’s PhD dissertation (2019) investigated whether regulatory inspections of workplace safety are associated with lower injury rates in BC firms. Her analysis of data from 2004 to 2014 found that inspections generally did not lead to a decrease in injury rates. We plan to add new years of data to further evaluate regulatory safety inspections in BC.
• We assessed the WorkSafeBC Inspection Experience and Impact survey to identify the factors that determine hazard management changes in workplaces following inspections and understand how employer and worker representatives rated their inspection officer’s ability to explain (1) how hazards in the workplace were managed by the firm/employer; (2) what changes were needed by their firm/employer to be compliant with regulation; and (3) whether or not the inspection led to changes in how hazards were managed at their workplace. We found that inspections can be effective in promoting changes in workplace hazard management. Over 70% of respondents reported inspections led to changes, and predictors of changes included officer communication, orders issued, and job role. See more in Safety Science.
• We conducted independent impact evaluations of the Certificate of Recognition (COR) audit programs in BC (and Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario) to assess how participation has affected firms’ claim rates and health and safety experience. COR programs provide premium rebates to employers who meet certain occupational health and safety management benchmarks or who have implemented a return to work program for injured workers. Results of these studies
• We surveyed long-term care homes and food processing firms about their health and safety practices, with the goal of establishing a set of leading health and safety indicators that organizations can use to assess and improve their health and safety performance. More information

In Alberta and Saskatchewan

• In an extension of Kim McLeod’s work in BC, we investigated whether regulatory workplace safety inspections in Alberta resulted in reductions in workers’ compensation claims rates for inspected firms relative to comparable non-inspected firms. We found that inspections were not effective in reducing firm-level claim rates, with the exception of transportation firms with more than one inspection experiencing a 28% decrease in their claim rate in the second year post-inspection, relative to the change in non-inspected firms. In construction, inspected firms experienced a 12% increase in their claim rate in the first year post-inspection. No effect was observed in the manufacturing sector. Detailed results are published in American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
• We conducted independent impact evaluation of the Certificate of Recognition (COR) audit programs in Alberta and Saskatchewan to assess how participation affected firms’ injury rates and health and safety experience, and found results consistent with our evaluation in BC. Results of these studies

In Ontario

• We examined the effectiveness of the Infrastructure Health and Safety Certificate of Recognition program in reducing injury rates among certified firms in Ontario. Consistent with our findings in BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, certification was associated with lower firm-level injury rates but the strength of this association is dependent on context, such as type of injury, size of firm, and sector. Results of these studies
• We are evaluating the Health and Safety Excellence (HSE) program, which was introduced by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) in 2019 to help Ontario firms improve workplace health and safety, by looking at changes in participating firms’ health and safety practices and collecting baseline information to assess longer-term impacts on health and safety outcomes. Learn more

Related publications

Contact: Chris McLeod