Supporting employees with episodic disabilities

Teamwork in the workplace
Episodic conditions like Crohn's disease and colitis are often unpredictable and invisible to others, with symptoms that fluctuate from one period in time to another. As such, they create unique challenges in managing workplace disabilities, particularly in implementing privacy and duty-to-accommodate policies. 

Crohn’s and Colitis Canada is involved in a new research project to help address these challenges in the workplace: Accommodating and Communicating about Episodic Disabilities (ACED). ACED is a partnership project which brings together academic researchers at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and a number of health charities like Crohn’s and Colitis Canada to collaboratively develop and deliver easily accessed, evidence-based tools, resources and training that protects privacy and facilitates communication and accommodation planning among workers, supervisors and other workplace parties. 

The ACED Toolkit will include personalizable tools, resources and training for employees with an episodic disability as well as for their workplaces – including employers, managers and human resources personnel. The five-year project is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Signature Initiative.

Learn more about ACED

  • Canada has among the highest incidence rates of Crohn's and colitis in the world.
  • 1 in 140 Canadians lives with Crohn’s or colitis.
  • Families new to Canada are developing these diseases for the first time.
  • Incidence of Crohn’s in Canadian kids under 10 has doubled since 1995.
  • People are most commonly diagnosed before age 30.

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