RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Health risk factors as predictors of workers' compensation claim occurrence and cost
JF Occupational and Environmental Medicine
JO Occup Environ Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 14
OP 23
DO 10.1136/oemed-2015-103334
VO 74
IS 1
A1 Natalie V Schwatka
A1 Adam Atherly
A1 Miranda J Dally
A1 Hai Fang
A1 Claire vS Brockbank
A1 Liliana Tenney
A1 Ron Z Goetzel
A1 Kimberly Jinnett
A1 Roxana Witter
A1 Stephen Reynolds
A1 James McMillen
A1 Lee S Newman
YR 2017
UL http://oem.bmj.com/content/74/1/14.abstract
AB Objective The objective of this study was to examine the predictive relationships between employee health risk factors (HRFs) and workers' compensation (WC) claim occurrence and costs.Methods Logistic regression and generalised linear models were used to estimate the predictive association between HRFs and claim occurrence and cost among a cohort of 16 926 employees from 314 large, medium and small businesses across multiple industries. First, unadjusted (HRFs only) models were estimated, and second, adjusted (HRFs plus demographic and work organisation variables) were estimated.Results Unadjusted models demonstrated that several HRFs were predictive of WC claim occurrence and cost. After adjusting for demographic and work organisation differences between employees, many of the relationships previously established did not achieve statistical significance. Stress was the only HRF to display a consistent relationship with claim occurrence, though the type of stress mattered. Stress at work was marginally predictive of a higher odds of incurring a WC claim (p<0.10). Stress at home and stress over finances were predictive of higher and lower costs of claims, respectively (p<0.05).Conclusions The unadjusted model results indicate that HRFs are predictive of future WC claims. However, the disparate findings between unadjusted and adjusted models indicate that future research is needed to examine the multilevel relationship between employee demographics, organisational factors, HRFs and WC claims.