New methods and data sources for measuring economic consequences of workplace injuries.

BACKGROUND: Evaluation of programs and policies to reduce the incidence of workplace injuries require that the consequences of injury are estimated correctly. Because workplace injuries are complex events, the availability of data that reflects this complexity is the largest obstacle to this estimation.

METHODS: We review the literature on the consequences of workplace injuries for both workers and employers, focusing on data sources, particularly linked administrative data from different public agencies. We also review other approaches to obtaining data to examine workplace injuries, including public-use longitudinal survey data, primary data collection, and linked employee-employer databases. We make suggestions for future research.

RESULTS: Recent advances in the literature on the economic consequences of workplace injuries for workers have been driven to a great extent by the availability of new data sources. Much remains unexplored. We find longitudinal survey databases including the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and the Health and Retirement Survey, to be very promising though largely untapped sources of data on workplace injuries. We also find that linked employee-employer databases are well suited for the study of consequences for employers.

CONCLUSIONS: We expect that new data sources should lead to rapid advances in our understanding of the economic consequences of workplace injuries for both workers and employers.