
Overview
Canada continues to face a public health crisis with opioid-related harms that has resulted in profound consequences for many Canadians. In response to this crisis, there are existing surveillance systems that have identified certain groups associated with opioid-related harms, however there is no information collected on the working population in Canada. Monitoring the opioid crisis in the Ontario working population is essential to understanding opioid-related harms in workers. This project, in partnership with the Institute for Work & Health (IWH), aims to establish a surveillance system for opioid-related harms in the Ontario workforce.
The objectives of this project are to:
- Examine and monitor opioid-related adverse health events in the Ontario workforce by adapting and expanding the existing surveillance cohort of workers (the ODSS)
- Characterize opioid-related harms among Ontario workers to:
- Monitor and describe temporal trends of opioid-related hospitalizations and ED visits among workers since 2006, overall and by opioid type, associated harm, and harm intention of poisoning
- Identify subgroups of workers at higher risk of opioid-related harms
- Compare incidence rates of opioid-related harms in the ODSS worker cohort with those in the general population of Ontario overall and according to the demographic, nature of injury, and occupational characteristics of workers
- Engage and partner with stakeholders to guide the project and disseminate findings using a variety of methods and communication channels to increase awareness of opioid-related harms among the working population in Ontario to relevant stakeholders
Visit the website for the Opioid-Related Harms among Ontario Workers project at opioidsandwork.ca