UVic Conducts Nation-Wide Survey on Workplace Health

If you work in Alberta or B.C., you’re more likely to have to undergo drug testing by your employer than if you work in any other province. That’s just one of the findings of a study led by Dr. Scott Macdonald, the assistant director of research at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research of BC.

In the first study of its kind to address all of Canada, Macdonald’s group surveyed 565 human resource managers across the nation in 2003. Each manager, who was responsible for 100 or more employees, completed a questionnaire on the characteristics of their worksite and types of wellness programs offered at their place of work.

What the group discovered was that more than 10 per cent of the companies surveyed had drug testing programs. It was nearly twice as likely to occur in companies that had a U.S. head office (18.2 per cent as opposed to 9.2 per cent if there was no U.S. head office) and particularly in companies that dealt with safety-sensitive primary resources (e.g. mining, forestry); companies in the transportation, communications, and utilities sectors; and construction companies. Drug testing was the most prevalent in Alberta (25 per cent) and British Columbia (17.9 per cent), both with abundant primary resources, and least common in Ontario (4.6 per cent).

“What I find most interesting is that the drug testing programs are more ideological than evidence-based,” says Macdonald. “Urine tests detect drug users among employees, but the problem is that the tests can’t measure or identify current impairment. They can only be used to identify past use. For example, marijuana can be detected for up to 28 days, which means that a worker who tests positive may have used it 28 days ago, but it doesn’t mean that person is unsafe in the workplace today. Yet, the employee may be subject to disciplinary actions.”

Along with drug testing programs, the study documented the frequency and factors related to employee assistance programs (EAPs), where employees with substance use, behavioural, or personal problems can receive short-term counseling, and health promotion programs (HPPs), which may include such activities as fitness classes, stress management, and dissemination of health-promoting information. It found that the majority of companies had EAPs (67.8 per cent), but they were unevenly distributed across different work sectors, with government most likely to have them and construction least likely. The most common type of HPP was a fitness program and the least common were day/elder care programs.

The last representative survey was conducted in 1993 and included only Ontario worksites. Macdonald’s paper provides a nationally representative snapshot of the extent and characteristics of these programs across Canada at worksites with 100 or more employees. By exposing the types of wellness programs that organizations adopt, the paper helps us understand whether employers are focusing on prevention, treatment or deterrence. As well, it reveals the role of the private sector in health care and the disparities that may occur in the establishment of workplace wellness programs. The paper is published in the March/April 2006 edition of the Canadian Journal of Public Health and available online at www.carbc.uvic.ca/Cdn_Workplace_Health.pdf.

-- 30 --