The Partnership for a Healthy Workplace Response to Breast Cancer

**Partnership for a Healthy Workplace response to Breast Cancer at the last big meeting at CLARI in Halifax, NS. Copyright Lenny Mullins**

The Partnership for a Healthy Workplace Response to Breast Cancer is a new research project in Nova Scotia aims to develop workplace interventions to help women diagnosed with breast cancer. The Partnership for a Healthy Workplace Response to Breast Cancer is led by researcher and Saint Mary’s University professor Dr. Lucie Kocum and co-investigators Dr. Catherine Loughlin (Saint Mary’s University), and Dr. Lynne Robinson (Dalhousie University).

The project takes a systems approach to occupational health. The systems approach means that all individuals in the system must be included from inception to delivery. The project brings together a network of stakeholders who will develop community-derived workplace interventions aimed at improving the psychosocial work environment for women diagnosed with breast cancer. The stakeholders actively participating in the partnership include breast cancer survivors, big and small business representatives, the insurance industry, organized labour, disability management professionals, cancer advocacy groups, health professions and an interdisciplinary team of researchers.

The project is funded by a joint initiative with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada with the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation and Saint Mary’s University providing additional partnership support and funding.

The first workshop was held on July 20, where members of the steering committee came together to discuss the concept of a healthy workplace response to breast cancer. The second workshop will take place on October 28, 2016. Meetings and workshops will be held over the next two years in which interventions will be developed and tested in workplaces across the country.