TORONTO, Ont. – Ontario’s workers’ compensation authority has created a Health and Safety Index to measure occupational health and safety in the province. Announced on May 11, the new Index will condense five categories of data – prevention, worker empowerment, workplace culture, enforcement and injuries – into one overall measure ranking how safe Ontario workplaces are and whether they are improving year by year, according to a news release from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). The Board will set a baseline from data gathered up to April of this year and begin publishing newer data with the overall measure every year starting in the summer of 2018. “The Health and Safety Index will give an overall view of Ontario’s workplaces, so that we know what’s working well and what needs to work better,” WSIB president and CEO Tom Teahen said in a press statement. “Everyone in Ontario has an interest in making workplaces as healthy and safe as possible.” The Index is the first tool of its kind in North America, and the WSIB stated that it hopes other workers’ compensation boards adapt its design for their own use.