Canadian Occupational Safety

August/September2018

Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.

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AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 15 O n March 12, 2009, 17 people were killed after a helicopter crashed off the coast of Newfoundland. Commissioner Robert Wells was tasked with heading up the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry to investigate the inci- dent and make recommendations to prevent future similar occurrences. In his report, Wells said the lone survivor, Robert Decker, likely lived through the accident due to a number of factors, including his fitness level. "(He) was a tall, lean fella and they think that because other people may have been more dense, in particular men — we store weight around our midsection — it could have compressed their kidneys and caused their blood pressure to go so high that they passed out," says Mike Wahl, senior director of wellness strategy and solutions, Horizon Occupational Health Solutions and the Medisys Health Group. "The fitness of workers was one of the reasons they may not have been able to get out." Although occupational health and safety encompasses the word "health," all too often the health promotion activities in an organization are categorized as "wellness" and operate separately from the OHS department. Research has emerged in recent years about the impact health has on safety and the organiza- tion as a whole, from reduced injuries to increased productivity and considerable financial savings. But in order to reap these rewards, experts say employers need to marry their OHS and wellness programming. There are a variety of ways health impacts safety, including obesity. Wahl's research has found that soft tissue injuries drop in concordance with a decrease in waist circumference for workers. Once they hit the average waist circumference or drop below that threshold, they essentially become protected against injury, experiencing even less injuries as a result, he says. His research has also found that a man with a waist circumference of more than 42 inches and a woman with a waist circumference of more than 38 inches will cost six times as much over the course of their employment when it comes to disability and preventable health costs than someone who is below that threshold. Holistic health and safety OHS and human resources need to come closer together if they want to improve health outcomes for workers By Amanda Silliker

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