ARCHIVED - Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety

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Section II: Analysis of Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

2.1 Strategic Outcome – Canadians will be provided with unbiased occupational health and safety information and services for the prevention of work-related illnesses and injuries.

The Act to create the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) was based on the concept that all Canadians have “… a fundamental right to a healthy and safe working environment.” A national centre would be an essential requirement to enable people to exercise this right everywhere in the country, a concept launched and supported by stakeholders across Canada. The resulting Act in 1978 had unanimous support from every federal party.

The Centre was created to provide a common focus for and co-ordination of information in the area of occupational health and safety. Prior to 1978, Canada was the only major industrialized nation that did not have a central body for this task. Given the large, diverse and multi-jurisdictional aspects of Canada, such a service is essential. Its key stakeholders, government (all levels), employers and labour work closely with CCOHS to promote occupational health and safety, and to foster consultations and co-operation with the mutual goal of reducing or eliminating occupational illnesses and injuries.

CCOHS is governed by a tripartite Council of Governors, comprised of representatives from labour, business and provincial, territorial and federal governments. This tripartite structure helps to ensure that CCOHS remains an independent and trusted source of unbiased information. The stakeholders participate actively in the governance of CCOHS making it unique as a tripartite organization that helps ensure its programs and services are unbiased, credible and meet the on-going needs of Canadians. Our recent evaluation (2009) stated:

The core strategic outcome for CCOHS is that Canadians will be provided with unbiased occupational health and safety information and services for the prevention of work-related illnesses and injuries. This objective involves CCOHS being recognized as a national clearinghouse for health and safety information and as the recognized leader in providing unbiased occupational health and safety (OHS) information and services to Canada’s OHS community. This community includes workers, their unions, employers, governments, educational institutions and related OHS professionals. Access to a leading and unbiased source of health and safety information provides further benefits to Canadians through a reduction in the extent of workplace disagreement and conflict over appropriate health and safety initiatives.

The evaluation used multiple lines of evidence to assess the extent to which CCOHS has achieved this recognition as an unbiased national OHS centre. We conducted interviews with leading members of the OHS community, we surveyed paying clients and users of free services and surveyed users of the CCOHS web site.

The activities of CCOHS are related to the promotion of occupational health and safety in the context of Canada’s decentralized system of OHS internal responsibility. The benefits of these activities are difficult to measure directly. CCOHS products and services are intended to lead to improved workplace conditions that ultimately lead to fewer illnesses, fewer injuries, and fewer deaths. In addition to these risk reduction benefits, reduced time loss and increased productivity from fewer accidents and injuries are an additional source of benefits. Current research on the value of reducing occupational fatality risks and preventing accidents indicates that Canadian society assigns a very high value to such reductions in workplace risks.

Data in this evaluation study show that there have been very significant and continuing declines in workplace fatalities and injuries relative to the number of workers employed. Many factors have influenced the decline in injury and fatality rates over time so that it has not been possible to determine the independent impact of CCOHS on these declines. In this report, the extent of the improvement in workplace conditions, attributed by users to the information disseminated by CCOHS, is used as a proxy measure of the health and safety impact of CCOHS. Our analysis, based on interviews and surveys, found that the reach of CCOHS products and services is substantial. As a result, we can establish plausible linkages between CCOHS activities and its intended effects on improving workplace conditions.

While directly attributing reductions in injuries and illnesses to CCOHS programs is not feasible due to many variables affecting this outcome, independent evaluations of our services indicate wide spread use of CCOHS information to effect change in workplaces. The extensive use of CCOHS information may result in reductions in injuries and illnesses throughout.

Exhibit IV-1 shows comparative data on occupational injuries and fatalities for 2007 (the latest year for which published data are available), and selected earlier years going back to 1970. There have been significant reductions in injuries and fatalities relative to numbers of workers but the numbers remain high and require our continuing attention. The reductions in both injuries and fatalities likely result from a variety of factors including a changing industry mix, changing production technologies, better educated workers and industry initiatives together with occupational health and safety policies and programs, including the activities of CCOHS.²

² CCOHS Program Evaluation and Financial Capacity Assessment, 2009.

Exhibit IV-1 Occupational Injuries and Fatalities in Canada

Year	Employees (millions)	Time-Loss Injuries	Fatalities	Injuries per million workers	Fatalities per million workers
1970	7.03	301,653	918	42,909	131
1998	14.33	375,360	798	26,201	56
2003	15.80	348,854	963	22,709	61
2005	16.17	337,390	1,097	20,865	68
2007	16.87	317,524	1,055	18,822	63

 

Source: Human Resources Development Canada, Occupational Injuries and their Cost in Canada, 1993-1997, 1999, and Statistical Analysis: Occupational Injuries and Fatalities, Canada, 1994-1998, 2000. For 2003, 2005 and 2007: Work Injuries and Diseases National Work Injuries Statistics Program, Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada, 2001-2003, and 2005-2007 and Labour Force Survey,2003, 2005, 2007, Statistics Canada.

2.1.1 Program Activity:

Program Activity: Occupational health and safety information development, delivery services and tripartite collaboration.
2008-09 Financial Resources ($thousands)			2008-09 Human Resources (FTEs)
Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending	Planned	Actual	Difference
4,713	5,312	4,925	96	90	6
Expected Results	Performance Indicators	Targets	Performance Status	Performance Summary
Easy access to Occuptional Health and Safety Information And Service	% of users satisfied with ease of access and retrieval of OHS information from Inquiries Service, web access and other CCOHS resources	Overall 80%Satisfied or very satisfied: Understanding 85% Time 82% Completeness 80% Usefulness 80% Clarity 80% Courtesy 89%	Met expectations	Overall 80% satisfied or very satisfied: Understanding 77% Timeliness 83% Completeness 77% Usefulness 80% Clarity 77% Courtesy 83%
Application of occupational health and safety information to improve workplace practices.	Percentage of respondents that say information is being applied in the workplace by employees, government and employers to make change.	72% is used to make change in the workplace	Expectations met	75% Inquirers 76% Customers used information to make change in the workplace
	Number of participant institutions in the academic support package	110 post secondary institutions	Mostly met	105 Institutions, reach of 3.6 million
	High quality information products and services available for the workplace	Usage statistics and satisfaction surveys	Met expectations	Satisfaction 97% Referral 94.6%
	Usage and satisfaction statistics for educational programs	e-learning 95% satisfaction 94% Referral rate 90% Satisfaction Classroom Webinar 80% Satisfaction rate	Expectations met	Satisfaction 82%
Increased Awareness and understanding of occupational health and safety issues in the workplace.	Numbers of Distributions of OHS information to employees and employers to improve their understanding of OSH	Increase distributions of materials by 10% Webinars Naosh week Day of Mourning Posters Workscape Liaison	Exceeded expectations	40% increase locations 45% increase locations 51% increase is webstatistics Posters – new program, 1000 posters and 23,139 pdf versions New – 800 participants New – increase 51% subscribers
	Satisfaction of attendees from Forum and post forum web statistics	85% satisfaction 2,000 downloads	Met expectations Mostly met	84% Satisfaction 1,958 downloads
	Reach, impact and satisfaction with the Health and Safety Report	85% Satisfaction 83% impact to make safer work place 10% increase in usage	Exceeded expectations	100% Satisfaction 80.6% to improve workplace 16.9% increase in distributions
	Providing Canadians new information to Canadians through partnerships	Reach of partnerships outcomes	Met expectations	5 new partnerships 5 Collaborative websites/portals

Program Activity Summary:

CCOHS has one program activity (PAA), occupational health and safety information development, delivery services and tripartite collaboration.

As a national institute, CCOHS undertakes a wide range of activities to achieve its objectives. These activities include the following:

• The provision of technical documents, data and related safety information to workers, workplaces and the health and safety community, Canadian workplace communities and the education system. An important element of these activities is to improve the coordination of the flow of occupational health and safety information.
• The promotion and evaluation of research on occupational health and safety issues.
• The provision of expert advice and training in occupational health and safety.
• Participation in meetings and conferences to contribute to improving prevention of safety and health problems.
• Other activities consistent with the mandate of promoting improved health and safety in the workplace and enhance the physical and mental health of Canadian workers.

Maintaining the health of Canadians is an important goal for Canada. Workplace health is an essential component of overall health of Canadians. CCOHS contributes to Canada’s goal of a healthy population, sustainable development, safe communities, and Canada’s role in the world. CCOHS works closely with labour, business and all levels of government to establish high standards for occupational health and safety, to foster consultation and co-operation, and reduce or eliminate occupational hazards.

Benefits for Canadians:

CCOHS is a national centre dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of unbiased information on occupational health and safety. CCOHS provides Canadians with information about occupational health and safety that is trustworthy, comprehensive and intelligible. The information facilitates responsible decision-making, promotes improvements in workplace health and safety, increases awareness of the need for a healthy and safe working environment, and supports training.

This program activity contributes to the goal of Healthy Canadians. Occupational diseases, illnesses and deaths are serious health risks faced by Canadians. The government plans to strengthen our social foundations by improving the overall health of Canadians starting with health promotion to reduce the incidence of avoidable disease. One of the most effective strategies in reducing ill health is the prevention of the causes. CCOHS’ primary role is to support Canada’s capability to improve prevention of work-related illnesses and disease by providing information and knowledge to enable Canadians to identify hazards and minimize or eliminate risks in the workplace and assist them to address issues and take remedial action.

CCOHS contributes to greater collaboration among nations to promote the sharing of information and knowledge for programs relating to occupational health and safety to reduce injuries and illness and improve conditions for workers. This promotes a safe and secure world through international co-operation. CCOHS also benefits Canadians by providing extensive information on a wide range of health hazards on hazardous chemicals and their impact on health and the environment. CCOHS is a major source of environmental health information relied upon by government regulators, the chemical industry, manufacturing sectors, fire fighters and citizens.

Performance Analysis:

CCOHS organizes its activities to meet the expected results linked to our program activity and strategic outcome:

• Easy access to occupational health and safety information and services
• Application of occupational health and safety (OHS) information to improve workplace practices
• Increased awareness and understanding of occupational health and safety issues in the workplace
• Partial recovery of costs from user fees (raise other revenues)

Easy access to occupational health and safety information and services

The primary risk of achieving the goals for this expected result is funding sources. This service is partially funded by voluntary contributions from most Canadian provinces and territories. These funding bodies are subject to funding availabilities in their own jurisdictions. The vast amounts of information from the internet is another risk. In order to mitigate this risk, CCOHS strives to distinguish itself as a trusted and reliable source of information by keeping information current and relevant to the users. CCOHS also adds value by providing information web portals and partnerships with trusted organizations so users can rely on the credibility of the data provided.

CCOHS offers an inquiries service that has fully trained information officers who specialize in occupational health and safety and information retrieval. CCOHS has extensive publications, worldwide database and an in-house library to provide current and relevant answers to Canadian Inquiries. In addition, we have a self-serve website, OSH Answers, that answers 6.8 million on-line inquiries. Our person to person service answered 12,514 inquiries. Our recent evaluation provided satisfaction results as follows:

Level of Satisfaction with CCOHS Inquiries Service (% of respondents indicating either very satisfied or satisfied)

Indicator	% satisfied
Timeliness	83%
Knowledge and ability of staff	77%
Courtesy of staff	83%
Completeness	77%
Usefulness	80%
Clarity	77%
Reliability	81%
Average	80%
Overall satisfaction with information received (separate question)	67%

Source: Data for CCOHS is from a survey of users conducted by TNS Canadian Facts 2009.

CCOHS performs its own surveys on a ongoing basis as evaluations are done every 4 to 5 years. This survey was conducted on users of the service during a 9 month time frame. Our internal surveys are done within two to four weeks after service delivery.CCOHS provides additional information through copyright requests resulting in 357,000 copies of CCOHS information being made available to the public through many institutions. These distributions are shared with many more users.

CCOHS also improved its web design complying with the common look and feel requirements of the government of Canada and continually enhances the website to provide up to date data. CCOHS developed and maintains several web portals on various topics such as workplace health, pandemic planning, Canosh, and NAOSH.

OSH Answers provides over 650 documents answering over 8 million inquiries to 2.5 million unique visitors to the site. CCOHS monitors trends and current developments to provide current information to meet the needs of Canadians.

CCOHS also publishes guides each year to reach workers as an on the job tool. There are currently 20 titles available. This year, a new guide Telework and Home Office Health and Safety Guide was released and our Workplace Wellness Guide was issued in its second edition. Our satisfaction survey for publications indicates a 93% satisfaction rate and a 93% recommendation rate. Clients feel this publication delivers good value for money, stating 96% satisfied or very satisfied. Over 93% said that the publication helped them improve their understanding of health and safety.

Application of occupational health and safety (OHS) information to improve workplace practices

The expected result of CCOHS activities is to improve the application of occupational health and safety to improve workplace practices. This includes several priorities to achieve this goal. CCOHS promotes collaboration and exchanges through national dialogues, forums and conferences to increase applications in the workplace and improve practices. We work closely with the education sector and partners to expand and improve teaching of health and safety in schools and providing them with resources.

CCOHS promotes application in the workplace with tools such as the CanOsh website, http://www.canoshweb.org/ to help Canadians locate Canadian occupational safety and health information for the purpose of legal compliance, improving workplace health and safety practices and ultimately to facilitate the acquisition of information required for the reduction of workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses. This website helps Canadians navigate 14 governmental jurisdictions and multiple websites. In 2008-9, more than 54,000 people accessed this site 160,000 times this year.

CCOHS works with many international organizations to obtain up to date information for Canadians. The details of many collaborative projects are outlined in our annual report.

CCOHS measures the application of its programs through surveys asking if information provided will result in changes in the workplace. Our recent independent evaluation asked this question for users of products, services and the inquiries service.

The survey responses indicate that most, 75% for Inquirers and 76% for clients, of the uses of CCOHS information relate to either current or future changes to the workplace that may result in improved workplace health and safety. This clearly demonstrates that CCOHS goals are being met.

In terms of the overall importance of the CCOHS Inquiries Service in meeting the health and safety needs of their organization, 76% of respondents said that CCOHS was either very important or important. For product users, the result was higher with 83% saying CCOHS was either very important or important.

Training and education are effective means of improving employers’ and workers’ awareness and knowledge of their rights and responsibilities with regard to OSH and are directly applicable to the workplace. Another recent study found only one in five Canadian workers received training in their first year of a new job.³ The risk to health is related to the workers newness to a job, a lack of training and hazardous work conditions. CCOHS offers courses in various environments that include traditional classroom, customized courses and e-learning to help meet the needs of Canadians. Courses are reviewed by tri-partite external reviewers to ensure relevancy and comprehensiveness.

CCOHS continued to expand its internet based e-learning courses this year. There are currently 15 new courses and a total of 45 bilingual courses. There are also free courses available on the website for the general public. These courses have helped train thousands of workers and have a very high satisfaction rating of 97.1% and a recommendation rate of 94.6%. The students reported 94.8% helped improve their understanding of occupational health and safety and 64.2% say the information will be used to make change in the workplace.

Increased Awareness and Understanding of Occupational Health and Safety issues in the Workplace

CCOHS’ goal is to increase awareness and understanding of occupational health and safety issues in the workplace. Awareness is the first step leading to changes that will result in reductions in workplace illness and injuries and death. This is accomplished through many public communications strategies and training.

The primary risk in achieving this goal is the limits of financial resources and staffing. CCOHS also relies on partnerships with other organizations to expand its reach. During the year, CCOHS undertook many initiatives to increase awareness and understanding.

The Health and Safety report is a monthly free e-newsletter distributed to anyone who signs up for the service. The content is widely reproduced by other organizations to enhance their own health and safety program. The service is very popular with a 16.9% increase this year to over 24,000 members. Each year a readership survey is conducted and it showed a 100% satisfaction rating and 93.7% saying the newsletter provides value to their organization. They also reported that 70.5% of respondents said the use of the information from the Report is directly/indirectly related to changes in their workplace that might improve health and safety. The report is often used for other newsletters, bulleting boards and orientation kits. 90% of subscribers share the report with others.

³Smith, Peter and Mustard, Cameron, How Many Employees Receive Safety Training During Their First Year of a New Job?, Injury Prevention, 2007, Volume 13, Issue 1

CCOHS also began a poster program to provide the public tools to help raise awareness of workplace health and safety issues. This program has been very successful with over 23,000 free downloads and 1,100 sales of posters.

During the year, CCOHS launched a new web discussion board to encourage knowledge exchange and community building amongst OHS professions and those with an interest in workplace health and safety. There are now 800 members and thousands more that view ongoing discussions.

CCOHS also has a webinar program to encourage people to host information sessions as an easy and efficient means to share information. These programs have been held to promote NAOSH week. CCOHS also partnered with the Healthy Workplace Coalition and Trillium Health Centre to produce a webinar on creating a healthy workplace. CCOHS also actively participates and partners with other organizations to promote the National Day of Mourning and North American Occupational Safety and Health Week and Canadian Healthy Workplaces Month. There are also several web portals to increase awareness of key issues. They include the Young Workers Zone, Bringing Health to Work, Pandemic Planning and many others. A summary of links is provided at the end of the report.

CCOHS has also begun a social media campaign using Twitter, Slideshare and Facebook to increase awareness to promote workplace health and safety and improve understanding. Through our website we reach over 7 million visitors with 46.5 million hits. CCOHS information reaches more individuals than the initial contact. The summary below shows the reach.

A summary of the quantitative data establishing the reach of CCOHS products and services in Canadian workplaces is shown in Exhibit IV-4. The key point of this exhibit is that not only does CCOHS have a large number of users and clients of its products and services but that the information and products they provide have a large number of users within the organization. Using the data in Exhibit IV-4, (together with a relatively conservative assumption that the “more than 500” category is 750) allows us to calculate the average number of workers affected by the products, services and information in each of the three columns of the exhibit. This average number of workers who could benefit from the information is 81 for the Inquiries Service, 80 for paid web products, 97 for other paid products and 208 for information supplied to users of the web site. ⁴

⁴ CCOHS Program Evaluation and Financial Capacity Assessment, 2009

Exhibit IV-4 Reach of Information in Organizations Using CCOHS Products and Services

Persons using within Organization	Inquiries Service	Paid Web Products	Other Paid Products	Web Site
1-10	62.4%	62.3%	65.6%	28.7%
11-100	25.3%	26.6%	15.6%	36.1%
101-500	7.0%	4.8%	12.5%	17.0%
More than 500	5.6%	6.2%	6.3%	18.1%

Partial recovery of costs from user fees

CCOHS generates 47% of is own revenues through cost recovery initiatives and support from other organizations. As CCOHS was directed to recover costs to finance 50% of its budget, it is necessary to have a cost recovery program. While it is extremely difficult to finance, CCOHS develops products to promote workplace health and safety and encourage attitudes and methods that will lead to improved worker physical and mental health.

Details about various cost recovery initiatives can be found in our annual report.

Lessons Learned:

During the past several years the ability to produce revenues from the sale of traditional database products has declined. With the change in technology and the workplace, it is a constant challenge to meet the ongoing needs of Canadians. CCOHS has learned that seeking feedback from the public is essential to providing what Canadians need to meet their occupational health and safety requirements. CCOHS has learned that providing information is the first step in the process of change, but the information must be provided in a meaningful format that is understandable to the user. In order to meet the changing needs of Canadians, CCOHS has implemented an ongoing performance management program to seek feedback at various service points. CCOHS has also learned that there must be continuous change in communication strategies and the delivery of various products. With this in mind CCOHS implemented webinars, podcasts, e-newsletters, posters and e-learning to help Canadians learn about health and safety.

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