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

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas Steel

    (Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium)

  • Lode Godderis

    (Environment and Health, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
    IDEWE, External Service for Prevention and Protection at Work, 3001 Leuven, Belgium)

  • Jeroen Luyten

    (Leuven Institute for Healthcare Policy, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
    Department of Health Policy, London School of Economics & Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, UK)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas Steel & Lode Godderis & Jeroen Luyten, 2018. "Methodological Challenges in the Economic Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Programmes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-12, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:11:p:2606-:d:184521
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Hansen, Kristian S. & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars P., 2023. "Productivity and quality-adjusted life years: QALYs, PALYs and beyond," Working Papers 11-2023, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    2. Kapo Wong & Alan Hoi Shou Chan, 2018. "Emerging Issues in Occupational Safety and Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-4, December.

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