Canadian Occupational Safety

August/September 2015 7 Occupational disease focus of research By Amanda Silliker O ntario is providing $2.7 million to support research projects that will help reduce workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities. The province is supporting 13 research projects related to occupational disease (fi ve projects), vulnerable workers (four) and high-hazard activities (four) through the Research Opportunities Program. When it comes to occupational disease, researchers are interested in whether exposure to silica, diesel and gasoline engine exhausts increase the risk of developing kidney cancer in men, as well as the impact of the inhalation and skin exposure of e-waste recy- cling workers to fl ame retardant chemicals. Vulnerable workers were also a key focus. For young workers, researchers are hoping to identify and address the psychological and social forces that increase the risk of injury among this group. Addi- tionally, the University of Ottawa will attempt to defi ne age-specifi c heat exposure limits for workers. Activities that are considered "high hazard" made up the fi nal category. One project will look at line-of-sight per- ceptions and reversing technologies to increase situational awareness in the construction industry and another will examine the frequency of injury among community-based personal support workers. Mining emerged as an area of focus across categories. Cancer Care Ontario received funding for two projects for the industry: One that will look at the relationship between employment in mining and both lung cancer and respira- tory diseases; and the other will study occupational exposure to carcinogens in three priority sectors within the industry. Another project will evaluate the impact of simulator training for improving mining safety outcomes. The research will determine whether demographics like age, gender, pre- vious training or work experience have any bearing on how trainees respond to simulator training and how well the training transfers to real-world performance on occupa- tional health and safety-related measures. Manitoba expands PTSD legislation By Sarah Dobson T he Manitoba government is amending its Workers Compensation Act to recognize post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a work- related occupational disease. Under this new law — a fi rst in Canada — the Workers Compensation Board would presume a worker's condition was caused by the job. It would extend coverage and benefi ts to all eligible workers who are diagnosed with PTSD by a med- ical professional. This would ensure timely access to compensation and support services, with the long-term goal of reducing the stigma attached to mental illness, according to the government. The proposed change was inspired by the work of nurses, fi refi ghters and fi rst responders. "We represent a broad cross-section of workers in different occupations and, as such, we have learned that psychological injuries can happen to absolutely anyone regardless of what they do for a living," said Michelle Gawronsky, president of Manitoba Government and General Employees Union (MGEU). "This legislation would make it easier for workers to get the treatment they need." If there is stigma around applying for benefi ts due to a psychological injury, a presumption will help people who are unsure about whether or not to make a claim, said Warren Preece, direc- tor of communications at the WCB in Winnipeg. "Anything that reduces barriers between an injured worker and the benefi ts they're enti- tled to is a good thing," he said. "The sooner we know the injury happens, the sooner our care system kicks in, be it a sprained wrist or sore back or psychological injury like PTSD." But applying this amendment to all workers is putting forward a legislative change before all the due diligence has been done, said Elliot Sims, director of provincial affairs, Manitoba, for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) in Winnipeg. "PTSD is a very diffi cult thing to diagnose because it can have such a long latency period and there can be a lot of contributing factors to it that might not all be work-related, so what the legislation is doing is basically short-circuiting or fast-forwarding the traditional evaluation period," said Sims. Another downside is the potential for invalid claims, said William Gardner, partner at Pitblado law fi rm in Winnipeg. "An employer might get a huge bill in the form of a big change in their experience rating due to a PTSD claim which is not actually work-related but because of the presumption. If you can't prove the contrary, then the employer is stuck with an increase in their premiums." Sarah Dobson is the lead editor for Canadian HR Reporter, a sister publication of COS. Line blurred between lost-time, no lost-time claims: Study By Liz Foster L ost-time and no-lost time claim categories are not as valuable as they once were in evaluating how well workplaces are performing in primary prevention, according to a study from the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto. The distinction between lost-time and no lost-time injuries is no longer clear cut, said Peter Smith, an IWH scientist and lead author of the study, which looked at Ontario statistics. "Our data suggest that we need to improve the way we assess safety performance by moving beyond lost-time claims as the only performance metric," he said. "We need to include all injuries in assess- ing performance, and when a claim does not result in time off work, we should collect information that tells us whether no time was lost because the injury was relatively minor or because modifi ed or alternative duties were available." The need to distinguish between lost-time and no-lost-time claims is imposed on Ontario employ- ers by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). When assessing a fi rm's safety performance, the WSIB weighs lost-time injuries more heavily than no-lost-time injuries, Smith said. This is because, traditionally, lost-time claims have been viewed as more severe injuries and are therefore expected to incur greater future costs. However, more active workplace accommodations and claims management following injuries has blurred the line between time-lost and no-time-lost claims, said Smith. These tools are often used to reduce lost-time claims, Smith explained, but do not necessarily reduce injuries. The IWH study examined about 7,000 no lost-time claims using WSIB data. Researchers matched each no lost-time claim with as many as four lost-time claims that were similar in terms of the type of injury, the event leading to the injury, the part of the body injured and the year the injury took place. The study found factors that were expected to affect time-lost injury claims — such as age and employer size — were, in reality, inconsequential. What the study did conclude was the employer's workers' compensation premium rate has just as much of an effect on whether or not time is lost after an injury as the nature of the injury itself. "If you have a high premium rate, you have the potential to receive the largest rebates or the largest surcharges," Smith said. "Firms with the highest premium rates have the most fi nancial incentive to reduce the number of lost-time claims." MULTI PURPOSE! 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