Do differences in work disability duration by interjurisdictional claim status vary by industry and jurisdictional context?

Abstract

ObjectivesTo examine whether differences in work disability duration between out-of-province and within-province workers differed by industry and jurisdictional context.MethodsWorkers’ compensation data were used to identify comparable lost time, work-related injury and musculoskeletal disorder claims accepted in six Canadian jurisdictions between 2006 and 2015. Out-of-province workers were identified as workers who filed claims in a different provincial jurisdiction to their province of residence. Coarsened exact matching was used to match out-of-province workers with within-province workers based on observable characteristics. Quantile regression models were used to estimate differences in cumulative disability days paid between out-of-province workers and within-province workers at different percentiles in the disability distribution, adjusting for confounders.ResultsCompared with within-province workers, out-of-province workers were paid more disability days even after matching and adjusting on observable characteristics. Differences between the two groups of workers were observed for short-duration, medium-duration and long-duration claims (differences of 1.57, 6.39, 21.42, 46.43 days at the 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles, respectively). Industry-specific models showed that differences were largest in construction, transportation and warehousing, and mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction. Jurisdiction-specific models showed that differences were largest in the western provinces where out-of-province workers were concentrated in those sectors.ConclusionsOut-of-province workers are a vulnerable group with respect to risk of longer work disability duration. Workers’ compensation systems, employers and healthcare providers may need to tailor specific interventions for these types of workers, particularly those employed in resource economy-dependent regions that are far from their regions of residence.

Differences in Work Disability Duration for Immigrants and Canadian-Born Workers in British Columbia, Canada

“…Quantile regression models [52] were used to estimate predicted work disability days for immigrant workers compared to Canadian-born workers at the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles of the disability days distribution. Quantile regression is an appropriate method when the outcome variable is skewed and allows for the investigation of different effects for those who have longer disability durations as unique sub-groups [53,54]. The models for each injury cohort were adjusted for all confounders and stratified by sex/gender as best practice for health-related research [55,56].…”

Do regional labor market conditions matter for temporary work disability duration? A multilevel analysis of workers' compensation claims in five Canadian provinces

“…Claims with more than 260 days (equivalent to 1 year based on a 5-day workweek) were right-censored as the majority of claims are no longer in receipt of temporary disability benefits beyond 1 year. This measure has been used in similar studies using administrative data when calendar RTW event data are unavailable, 8,23,37 and a 1 year follow-up is consistent with similar research examining regional variation in work disability duration. 6 2.4 | Regional-level characteristics Economic region was used as the area-level variable.…”

Evaluating effectiveness of an integrated return-to-work and vocational rehabilitation program on work disability duration in the construction sector

“…Since cumulative disability days paid is a highly skewed measure, with a large proportion of claims receiving few disability days and a small proportion continuing to accumulate disability days during the two years following injury, linear regression was used to model differences at the mean whereas quantile regression was used to model differences at the 25 th , 50 th , 75 th and 90 th percentiles of the distribution. This approach follows previous work disability and RTW studies that have relied on similar skewed outcome data (30,31,35). Each regression model is adjusted for the same variables used in the propensity score matching, with the exception of the injury severity proxy.…”