Canadian Safety Reporter

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CSR | April 2015 | News Permanent impairment from work-related injuries linked to early death Risk persists more than 10 years after injury: Study BY LIZ BERNIER PEOPLE WHO ARE perma- nently impaired by work-related injuries face a higher risk of early death, according to a study from the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto. is risk persists more than 10 years after the injury itself takes place and the highest jump in mortality risks is faced by work- ers who are permanently im- paired following an injury early in their career. " ere is a slightly elevated risk of premature mortality among the group of Ontario workers who were awarded a permanent impairment," said IWH president Cameron Mustard. Between 18 and 28 per cent of serious injuries experienced by adults in Canada occur at work, according to the institute. One in every 10 individuals who report a work-related injury will experi- ence some degree of permanent impairment. "Long-term mortality risk in individuals with permanent work-related impairment," pub- lished in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, was led by IWH associate scientist Heath Scott- Marshall, who linked data from Statistics Canada with data from the Workplace Safety and Insur- ance Board in Ontario to deter- mine the long-term mortality risk in individuals with perma- nent impairment. The study examined 19,000 Ontarians with permanent im- pairment resulting from a work- related injury over a period of 19 years. Each individual in the sample was paired with as many as 10 people who did not expe- rience a work injury but shared similar characteristics such as age, sex and income level. e overall rate of death for men with permanent impair- ments was 14 per cent compared to nine per cent in the non-in- jured control group. e overall rate of death for women with permanent impairment was six per cent compared to four per cent in the non-injured control group. is represents a 55 per cent and 50 per cent higher risk of mortality, respectively. For both men and women, a work-related injury causing per- manent impairment at a young age (25 to 29) resulted in a higher likelihood of early death. Many would fi nd it surprising that youth has a negative impact on the risk of premature mor- tality, said John Illingworth, a partner at Gowling Lafl eur Hen- derson's employment and labour group in Kitchener, Ont. "What that suggests to me is that there is a signifi cant mental health component to the return to work that we are only begin- ning to explore," Illingworth said. "Studies like this would suggest that we need to pay closer atten- tion to the impact of a signifi cant work-related injury on a worker's mental health as well as their physical well-being." e care for workers' physical well-being following a work-re- lated injury is fairly standardized across Canada, he said. Employ- ers are governed by respective workers' compensation regimes and are required to co-operate in the worker's early and safe return to work following an injury. "What that generally means is that employers have an obliga- tion to return workers as quickly as possible to a job position that is safe for them to perform," Ill- ingworth said. " at can be their original job with accommodation or it could be some other form of modified work, depending on what's considered the appropri- ate return-to-work plan in the circumstances. Employers who handle these situations best tend to approach them on a case-to- case basis. Additionally, employers have a concurrent obligation to accom- POVERTY < pg. 7 Credit: Todd Korol (Reuters)

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