WSIB unveils $65M grant for London research to better prevent, treat workplace injuries

Tens of thousands of Ontario workers are injured or sickened while on the job every year, while several hundred more are the victims of workplace-related fatalities, according to provincial statistics.

Getting those numbers down is the aim of a 10-year, $65.75 million grant from Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. It was unveiled on Friday for the Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph's Health Care London (SJHCL).

Officials with St. Joseph's say the grant will fund the creation of a provincial research network focused on projects to better prevent, diagnose, and treat workplace injuries and illnesses.

"This is about recruiting and bringing in the greatest minds around occupational illness and injury. Scientists will be recruited here, but we will also network with researchers and scientists across the province and across Canada," said Roy Butler, president and CEO of SJHCL.

"(The grant) also will invest in technologies, so state-of-the-art imaging equipment [and] virtual reality equipment that helps drive innovation and new ways of treatment."

A joint media release issued Friday by St. Joseph's and WSIB said such technology will make the research network "accessible by centres and workplaces across Canada."

It added that the grant was the largest research injection WSIB had ever given out, and the biggest non-government research investment in the city's history.

Some research is already underway at Lawson centres around the neurological factors that contribute to chronic pain, he said. The hope is to find new ways of predicting whether chronic pain will occur, and what can be done to intervene.

The WSIB received roughly 218,000 claims last year for work-related injuries and diseases, including more than 61,000 citing lost time. About 156,000 claims were allowed, with total benefit payments of roughly $2.35 billion.

In an interview, Jeffrey Lang, WSIB's president and CEO, said he believes the research will help better serve claimants, and provide employers information and tools to make workplaces safer.

"The WSIB is in a very good position right now that we're able to invest in research which, at the end of the day, will provide us with better outcomes for injured workers. Ultimately, fewer injuries is less cost to employers," he said.

Lang said choosing Lawson was a "no-brainer," describing it as a "world-class researcher." He added Lawson researchers will utilize WSIB data to see where and in what sectors injury claims are being made in Ontario, and what their focus should be.

"Ideally, we'd like to work our way out of a job. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be injuries, there wouldn't be a need for a WSIB, but that's not the case."

Seventy per cent of claims WSIB deals with are musculoskeletal-related, like strains, sprains, and breaks, Lang said. 

Over the last decade, more claims have been tied to chronic and traumatic mental stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder. At least 2,200 such claims were approved by WSIB last year.

"People are talking about mental stress and their mental health a lot more than they ever were before," Lang said.

"I think employers now are more sensitive to the fact that this is something that has been in the workplace for a long, long time, and they want their employees to seek help in the event that stress was created at work."

It's the second major funding announcement by the WSIB in the last few months.

In November, the compensation board announced $20 million in funding for a 9,000-square-foot research lab at Fanshawe College, dubbed the WSIB Centre of Excellence in Immersive Technologies Simulation for Workplace Safety.

The lab will use extended reality and artificial intelligence to develop and implement training tools aimed at preparing future first responders for the high-risk, intense situations they may find themselves in on the job.