How can workers' compensation systems promote occupational safety and health? Stakeholder views on policy and research priorities.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Broten N ; Dworsky M
• Description:
  Workers' compensation is a state-level social insurance program that provides financial, medical, and rehabilitation benefits to workers who sustain occupational injuries or illnesses. Workers, employers, and other stakeholders involved in workers' compensation systems have long voiced concerns about the extent to which workers' compensation serves to promote occupational safety and health (OSH) and the well-being of injured workers, while government reports and journalistic accounts in recent years have both highlighted perennial issues and documented emerging concerns. However, it is not clear how much consensus there is about which of the challenges to OSH and worker well-being in the workers' compensation system are most pressing, whether there is sufficient evidence to identify best practices or policy solutions, or what structural barriers have prevented policymakers from resolving these challenges. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requested that RAND explore the beliefs and priorities of key workers' compensation stakeholder groups about system challenges and research priorities that, if addressed, would be most useful for reforming workers' compensation systems to promote OSH and the well-being of workers. This report describes stakeholder views on the most pressing challenges and priorities for workers' compensation systems and attempts to synthesize these perspectives to offer suggestions for research and policy analysis priorities. To address these questions, RAND conducted a literature scan to identify published criticisms of current workers' compensation systems, focusing on the implications of workers' compensation for workers' safety, health, and economic well-being. After producing a compendium of such critical perspectives, RAND then convened a series of stakeholder conversations with selected representatives from five key stakeholder groups: 1. workers; 2. employers; 3. claims administrators; 4. state agency leaders; and 5. occupational health care providers. Workers and employers are the core stakeholders of a workers' compensation system, and every system must strike an acceptable balance between the interests of workers and employers to remain politically sustainable. The other three stakeholder groups invited to participate in this study were chosen because they are crucially important in setting workers' compensation policy (state agencies), in managing the operations of the workers' compensation system and shaping the practical realities experienced by injured workers (claims administrators), or in providing needed medical care and helping manage the recovery and return-to-work processes (health care providers). Certain limitations to the scope and findings of this study are important to bear in mind. We had relatively small numbers of stakeholder participants, and while we sought to achieve a diversity of backgrounds and experience within each stakeholder group, we did not attempt to select a representative sample of stakeholders. Other system participants (such as attorneys or vocational rehabilitation professionals) that were not included in these conversations may also have constructive viewpoints on system challenges.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Health Preceptorship Safety Staff Development Workplace
• Keywords:
  Administration Administrative Procedures Diseases Health Care Health Promotion Injuries Management Personnel Medical Care Occupational Safety And Health Occupations Partnership Policy Return To Work Systematic Reviews Worker Health Worker Safety Workers Compensation Work Operations Work Organization Work Practices

  More +
• ISBN:
  9781977401519
• Publisher:
  RAND Corporation
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Book ; Final Contract Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OD - Office of the Director
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-101
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060220
• Citation:
  Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, RR-2566-NIOSH, 2018 Nov; :1-101
• Email:
  mdworsky@rand.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2019
• Performing Organization:
  RAND Corporation
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3395c0d637ee8b66a79c5e6fae6d486420fdb43ac09ceaa94f71d90a89a5203a38727022d6e8f636ee56dfce9cc31002e85d44b42a94fd74ef1bccbba3739741
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181875/cdc_181875_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 602.20 KB ]