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.

Terrence Sullivan is a senior health service leader in Canada who has led Cancer Care Ontario for much of the last decade.Jean-Louis Denis is a professor at the École nationale d’administration publique.

Terrence Sullivan's profile page

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.

The Disability Reporter, Winter 2000