Injury and the New World of Work
Over the last fifty years the nature of work and work injury has changed dramatically. Since the 1980s, workers’ compensation claims have grown steadily and insurance institutions are feeling the crunch. In Injury and the New World of Work, Terrence Sullivan emphasizes the precarious line between the expansion of needs-based justice and the preservation of work-based prosperity.
The contributors to the book represent the fields of public health, sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, nursing, psychiatry, management, economics, public policy, and labour studies. They explore four general challenges to the workplace and the compensation system: the dramatic rise in disability associated with the changing nature of work; methods of preventing injury and disability; the need for rehabilitation; and the difficulty of reconciling fairness for workers and economic sustainability in a competitive era.
Injury and the New World of Work examines a broad range of research solutions and policy options for dealing with the critical state of workers’ compensation. The essays draw on recent case studies and original empirical work from Canada, situating the book within a comparative international frame of reference.
This volume presents a comprehensive look at the kinds of changes that have taken place in the labour market and summarizes the rapidly growing body of evidence regarding the links between a range of disabilities and possible work-related causes.
This volume is an important work, which broadens the compensation paradigm in a useful way. It will be of interest to WCB and labour policy makers, and students in occupational medicine and hygiene, law, economics, and public health.
Injury and the New World of Work is an important, timely contribution to the literature on workers’ compensation ... It is a practical compilation of the latest developments and research, often presented in a challenging and stimulating manner.
Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
Part 1: Introduction
1 Restating Disability or Disabling the State: Four Challenges / Terrence Sullivan and John Frank
Part 2: The Industrial-Epidemiological Shift
2 From Chainsaws to Keyboards: Injury and Industrial Disease in British Columbia / Aleck Ostry
3 Workforce and Workplace Change: Implications for Injuries and Compensation / Morley Gunderson and Douglas Hyatt
4 Women, Work, and Injury / Jinjoo Chung, Donald Cole and Judy Clarke
Part 3: Prevention
5 The Importance of Psychosocial Risk Factors in Injury / Michael Kerr
6 Ergonomic Interventions for Reducing Musculoskeletal Disorders / Robert Norman and Richard Wells
7 Firm-Level Organizational Practices and Work Injury / Harry Shannon
8 Joint Health and Safety Committees: Finding a Balance / John O'Grady
Part 4: Rehabilitation and Return to Work
9 Staging Treatment Interventions following Soft Tissue Injuries / Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, Donald Cole, Pierre Côté, and John Frank
10 The Natural History and Effective Treatment of Chronic Pain from Musculoskeletal Injury / Eldon Tunks, Joan Crook and Mikaela Crook
11 Effective Disability Management and Return-to-Work Practices / Ann-Sylvia Brooker, Judy Clarke, Sandra Sinclair, Victoria Pennick and Sheilah Hogg-Johnson
Part 5: Entitlement, Fairness and Sustainability
12 Determining Occupational Disorder: Can This Camel Carry More Straw? / John Frank and Andreas Maetzel
13 Fatality Benefits: Rationale and Practice / Terry Thomason
14 Psychiatric Disability and Workers' Compensation / William Gnam
Appendices
A Categories of Injury and Disease
B Gender Differences in Work Exposure and Injury
C Bradford Hill's Criteria for Assessing Evidence of Causation
D Fatality Benefit Comparisons
Contributors
Index
