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CIM Distinguished Lecturers
Nancy Wilk is an Environment Health and Safety (EHS) Fellow and Certified Industrial Hygienist with WSP’s Mine Water Environment with 36 years’ experience in occupational hygiene. She has worked as an Ontario provincial enforcement officer, a consultant, Risk Management Director for McMaster University, and was the Global Vice President of Health, Safety, Security & Environment for Golder Associates from 2012 to 2017. Nancy has worked with the mining sector since 1987 providing Industrial Hygiene and EHS expertise and support to exploration, operations, processing, and mine remediation nationally and internationally. Nancy is a past Board Member and Past President for the Occupational Hygiene Association of Ontario, past Board Member and Treasurer of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, current Director on the International Occupational Hygiene Association Board, and current Vice-Chair of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Total Worker Health Advisory Group. Nancy is the recipient of the 2020 Hugh Nelson Award of Excellence in Occupational Hygiene and the AIHA 2022 Aileen Yankowski Outstanding Leader of the Year Award.
Distinguished Lecturer 2023-24
Total Worker Health® – An approach to Occupational Disease Prevention and Improved Worker Well-Being in Mining
Lecture Abstract
Global estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury indicate that each year 1.9 million people die from exposure to occupational risk factors, 81% of these fatalities resulting from non-communicable, occupational diseases. This data underestimates the true burden of occupational disease. The classical approaches to occupational safety and health and risk management are not effectively preventing occupational disease and related fatalities. There is an urgent need for alternative strategies to prevent occupational illness and advance well-being. Total Worker Health® (TWH®), introduced by NIOSH in 2011, offers an approach for consideration that could serve as a model in sectors such as mining and across geographies, to improve worker well-being, mitigation of risk and, ultimately, prevention of occupational disease and related fatality. Nancy, as the 2023-2024 Chair of the AIHA TWH Advisory Group, will share her insights into TWH®, disease prevention and worker well-being, related areas of practice and research, and potential applications to mining.
