Research Project Summary

Year Funded: 2012 Budget: Funding Agency: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Title: Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding and Measuring Occupational Health and Safety Vulnerability (IWH Project 1240)
Category: Changing Nature of Work and Work Environment
Subcategory: Changing Nature of Work and Work Environment
Keywords: occupational health & safety, prevention, vulnerable workers
Link to research website: www.iwh.on.ca

Issue:

Vulnerability is defined as the potential openness to attack, or physical or emotional wounding. In the area of occupational health and safety (OHS) vulnerability can be defined as an increased risk of experiencing a work-related injury or illness compared to some reference standard. Often subgroups of labour market participants, for example younger workers, new workers, immigrants or visible minorities are labelled as vulnerable. Yet, this categorization of workers does not identify the specific characteristics that place these workers at higher risk of experiencing a work-related injury. The purpose of this proposal is to build on a conceptual framework of occupational health and safety vulnerability which has been developed by the research team to generate a set of domains and pool of potential items within each domain that can form a feasible measure of OHS vulnerability.

Objectives:

To develop a measure of OHS vulnerability among labour market participants that moves beyond demographic worker characteristics towards factors that are more proximal to risk of injury or illness at the level of the worker.
To develop a refine a measure of OHS vulnerability that can be used for public health surveillance purposes.

Anticipated Results:

Investigators:

Peter Smith, Ron Saunders, Curtis Breslin, Marni Lifshen, Emile Tompa, Anthony Lamontagne (Monash University, Institute for Work & Health, University of Melbourne)