Economic evaluation of occupational health services: necessary, challenging and promising

Luyten, Jeroen; Steel, Jonas; Godderis, Lode

doi:10.1136/oemed-2017-104495

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Even if only a few employers can be convinced to engage in a study, this can give many opportunities to validate measurement instruments objectively, compare productivity methods against an output-based standard, or further advance research of compensation mechanisms and multipliers. Several authors have noted that the general quality and relevance of economic evaluation in the OHS field falls below the standard in other domains of healthcare (7,20,147). The OHS community should not fall behind in incorporating stateof-the-art methods into economic evaluations and can even take a lead position experimenting with methods to assess how productivity should be measured.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In occupational health and safety (OHS), avoiding these productivity losses is an indispensable element of the value of interventions: a healthy workforce reduces the need for costly (internal or external) replacement workers, and avoids output not being produced (eg, when no replacement is found). Whereas in the economic evaluation of healthcare, productivity effects are often excluded for ethical or pragmatic reasons (2)(3)(4)(5)(6), in the context of OHS, they are often a central point of focus (7). This is logical, as in this domain, investments beyond the strict legal minimum requirements are often made at the discretion of managers and shareholders, for whom productivity gains are a major element of OHS' economic attractiveness.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review

Steel¹,

Godderis²,

Luyten³

2018

Scand J Work Environ Health

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Productivity estimation is a key factor in demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of occupational health and safety (OHS). However, the studies analysed in this systematic review lack standardization, exclude important factors, and the precision, validity and reliability of estimates widely differs. Researchers should be aware of how the method and precision of estimating productivity affects results, and, ultimately, the economic attractiveness of OHS. Key terms: absenteeism; cost-effectiveness; economic evaluation; friction cost; human capital; indirect cost; measurement; methodology; occupational health; occupational health and safety; presenteeism; productivity estimation; review; systematic review; valuation; work This article in PubMed: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29405241 Additional materialPlease note that there is additional material available belonging to this article on the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health -website. Scand J Work Environ Health -online first 1Review Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review by Jonas Steel, MSc, 1 Lode Godderis, MD,2,3 Jeroen Luyten, PhD 1,4 Steel J, Godderis L, Luyten J. Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review. Scand J Work Environ Health -online first. doi:10.5271/sjweh.3715Objectives Occupational health and safety (OHS) interventions' effect on worker productivity is an essential, but complex element of the value of these programs. The trustworthiness of economic evaluation studies, aiming to provide guidance to decision-makers in the field of OHS, depends at least partly on how accurately productivity changes are measured. We aim to review the methods used to estimate productivity changes in recently published economic evaluations of OHS interventions. MethodsWe performed systematic searches of economic evaluations of OHS programs published between 2007 and 2017 and reviewed these studies' methods to quantify the programs' impact on worker productivity ResultsOf the 90 identified studies, 44 used a human capital approach, 17 a friction cost approach, 13 stated productivity in natural units (eg, a cost-per-absence-day-avoided), 7 made use of compensation expenses, 4 used output-based methods, 4 an "ad hoc" approach, and 1 study did not state its method. Different approaches were combined in 19 studies. Within these methods, we observed a wide diversity in their precise implementation, especially regarding the measurement and valuation of absenteeism and presenteeism.Conclusions Productivity is a key element of the economic attractiveness of investing in OHS. Economic evaluation studies of OHS would benefit from more methodological standardization in their approach to quantifying productivity change. Future research should better account for the methodological uncertainty that occurs in estimating it in order to demonstrate the impact that particular choices and approaches to productivity estimation ca...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review

Steel¹,

Godderis²,

Luyten³

2018

Scand J Work Environ Health

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“…However, several publications have highlighted that many of these economic evaluation studies are lacking sufficient scientific quality [ 6 ]. To some extent, this is because the measurement and attribution of the effectiveness of OHS interventions is inherently more challenging than it is in, e.g., the domain of pharmaceutical evaluation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological Challenges in the Economic Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Programmes

Steel

Godderis

Luyten

2018

IJERPH

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An emerging issue in occupational health and safety (OHS) is that interventions increasingly have to demonstrate that they offer sufficient value for money. To this end, the last decennia have seen more and more economic evaluation methods being employed in this field. However, several recent publications have indicated that many of the published studies suffer from important shortcomings. This paper aims to highlight difficulties in assessing the value of OHS by use of current economic evaluation methods. First, a summary framework presents an overview of the costs and benefits relevant for OHS interventions. Next, three elements from this framework are selected that are at the same time crucial to OHS value, but also challenging to measure and monetise: Effects on worker productivity, ‘intangible’ benefits, such as reputation effects, and the influence of the broader legal–fiscal context in which an intervention takes place. The following sections then discuss the following research questions for each of these elements: Why is it difficult to exclude these factors from OHS economic evaluations? Why do they pose a challenge to the quality of economic evaluations in OHS? How can they be included, and what are the known advantages and disadvantages of the methods to measure these factors? Future work should investigate (and standardise) better methods to include these elements.

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RETRACTED CHAPTER: Health Economic Evaluation of Workplace Health Promotion

Liu¹,

Chen²

2020

Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences

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Economic evaluation of occupational health services: necessary, challenging and promising

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review

Productivity estimation in economic evaluations of occupational health and safety interventions: a systematic review

Methodological Challenges in the Economic Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Programmes

RETRACTED CHAPTER: Health Economic Evaluation of Workplace Health Promotion

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