| Year Funded: 2012 | Budget: | Funding Agency: Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario |
|---|---|---|
| Title: | Work Injury and Poverty: Investigating Prevalence Across Programs and Over Time (IWH Project 2180) | |
| Category: | Compensation, Disability Management and Return to Work | |
| Subcategory: | Compensation, Disability Management and Return to Work | |
| Keywords: | income security, work disability, workers’ compensation | |
| Link to research website: | www.iwh.on.ca | |
Issue:
Research on the economic impact of work disability has found that permanently impaired workers have reduced labour-market earnings, suffer significant long-term financial losses, and are at increased risk of poverty. There is also some preliminary research undertaken by injured worker groups that suggests the proportion of impoverished claimants has been rising, although it is difficult to generalize from studies based on samples of convenience. Furthermore, little is known about the specific factors contributing to claimant poverty and the reasons for its possible increase.
Objectives:
To investigate the prevalence of poverty amongst injured claimants with permanent impairments and how it differs from that of matched, uninjured controls.
To investigate whether the prevalence of poverty amongst claimants changed over time.
To investigate whether the program under which claimants receive benefits bears on the prevalence of poverty.
To examine the magnitude and significance of the effects of individual, programmatic, temporal, and other contextual factors on the probability of poverty.
Anticipated Results:
The WSIB is an important user group and audience for the results from this study. We will disseminate our findings first through a WSIB group and to directors at the WSIB. Reports and presentation materials will be developed to convey key findings in a manner that is transparent and useable. We will also work with the Knowledge Transfer and Exchange department at the Institute for Work & Health to prepare materials which convey our key messages in a manner that is accessible to a broad range of stakeholders. Another critical audience to target for dissemination is the injured worker community and their representatives, as well as service providers.
Investigators:
Emile Tompa, Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, Ron Saunders, Heather Scott-Marshall, Peri Ballantyne (Institute for Work & Health, Trent University)
