Opiod Related Harms Among Ontario Workers
25 Years On. Still Needed.Every August 31, International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) brings a global community together to take action on overdose. Hold an event, spread the message, take action today. This year the theme for IOAD is 25 Years On. Still Needed. For 25 years, International Overdose Awareness Day has brought people together to remember those we’ve lost and to take action to save lives.
The Institute for Work and Health conducted an extensive study on Opiod use among Ontario workers. They explored which professions were at greater risk for opioid use and overdose. See the information here.
A Data ToolThe IWH and the Ontario Cancer Research Centre partnered to create The Opioid-Related Harms among Ontario Workers project. This project aims to establish a surveillance program to monitor opioid-related adverse health events among Ontario workers.
The Opioids and Work Data Tool is an interactive tool that illustrates patterns of opioid-related harms among Ontario workers. The tool includes three dashboards, each displaying data for a different opioid-related harm identified in emergency department and hospitalization records:
Graphs within each dashboard can be customized to show trends in opioid-related harms over time, as well as the characteristics of the workers experiencing these harms (i.e., their age, sex, health region, occupation, and industry).
Since 2023, employers must provide naloxone in the workplace if certain circumstances described in the Occupational Health and Safety Act apply. FIND OUT MORE
Carmine covers factors in the construction industry that make its workers vulnerable to substance abuse and addiction. Workers usually work contract on different sites, sometimes for short periods of time, and are always adjusting to new work sites and conditions. Work can be dependent on weather and project progress. He explains how accepted accident stats are skewed and don’t show the whole story, and how the compensation landscape does not adequately support injured workers.
Speaker: Dr. Nancy Carnide, PhD, Associate Scientist, Institute for Work & Health
Dr. Carnide discusses the statistics for OPIOID harms among Ontario workers. Opioid uses has increased since the Covid pandemic, and males are most effected. In Ontario, there are not adequate statistics gathered or surveillance systems to monitor substance abuse in workplace — BC has better records. In that province, construction, transportation and warehousing are the topic fields where opioid abuse and fatalities occur. 44% of those who died from overdose were employed at the time of their death. Get factual information about the real numbers from this webinar.
© OHCOW, 2022
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95% Confidence Interval (CI) is a range of values (upper and lower) that you can be 95% certain contains the true mean of the population.
