Laurentian's CROSH to take health and safety research on the road

Experts at the Centre for Research inOccupational Safety and Health (CROSH) in Sudbury want to hear about health and safety issues from workers in rural and remote areas of Ontario.

Next month the research facility at Laurentian University will launch a mobile unit meant to travel across the province.

The large vehicle will act as a portable laboratoryfor any of the 40 multidisciplinary researchers at CROSH, says Director Sandra Dorman.

They'll gather information from workplaces outside of Sudbury, where most of the studies and experiments currently are conducted.

"We've got the home lab where we can bring ideas back and test them out, but the mobile lab allows us to get the information in the field, bring it back to the lab for testing and then go back to the field, to ensure that the new ideas actually work," says Dorman.

The traveling labwill allowCROSHresearchers to determine what particular health and safety issues are affecting workers in rural and remote locations.

In turn, the experts and scientists can find solutions to those problems.

Dorman says the mobile unit will allow researchers with CROSHto access workplaces that have principally been ignored because of their geography.

Workers will have a voice

"Even just getting a chance to talk to workers that are outside the 2 or 3 hours radius of Sudbury, " says Tammy Eger, the Research Chair forCROSH.

"We want to hear what are the issues up in Fort Frances, in Kirkland Lake, in Kenora, in SiouxLookout, Timmins, Chapleau. That's the idea, they'll have a voice."

Egeradded that a voice for workers is important.

"You want people to have an opportunity to speak and let [researchers]know what their issues are, so we can help to be a part of the solution."

There will always be at least one research technician managing the lab when it's on the road.

There may also be ateam of researchers on the vehicle depending on what topic is being studied at the time.

Egersays the mobile unit could support research projects that focus onmentalhealth, fatigue in the workplace, heat stress oranythingfrom an occupational health and safety perspective.

This is the only portable lab of its kind in Canada, devoted to occupational health and safety research.

The CROSH mobile research unit will officially openJune 28.

Egersays the portable labwill likely travel over northern Ontario during an official tour launch in the fall.