Researchers unveil travelling health and safety lab

Researchers who study occupational health and safety plan to visit workplaces in remote northern Ontario with the help of a new travelling lab.

The team at Laurentian University's Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health launched the new mobile unit today.

Sandra Dorman, director of CROSH, said many workplaces in northern Ontario get ignored by researchers from larger cities.

The CROSH mobile unit will allow researchers to visit small communities to help solve workplace challenges.

"We know living in the north there are contextual difference between Timmins and Toronto," Dorman said.

"You can't apply the problems or the solutions that work in southern Ontario to northern Ontario workplaces, so we need to get up there to understand them."

Dorman says the almost 10 metre long mobile unit and all the portable equipment inside, cost just over a half million dollars, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

Labour Minister Kevin Flynn told CBC News that mobility is one of the key features of the lab.

He was in Sudbury attending the launch of the lab.

"Being able to take [the lab] on the road is very important," he said. "In the south we can go to the location, or the lab."

"You have to take into account the unique character of northern Ontario," Flynn said.