Injury and the New World of Work

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. -- Clyde Hertzman, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, University of British Columbia 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. -- Edward M. Welch, Director of the Workers' Compensation Center at Michigan State University

Examines a broad range of research solutions and policy options for dealing with the critical state of workers' compensation.

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.