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Handbook of Work Disability pp 95–106Cite as

Measurement of Outcomes in WDP: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations and Recommendations for Measuring Outcomes

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Abstract

There are many compelling reasons to develop and disseminate measures of work disability outcomes—to understand the impact of health care, workplace safety, or disability prevention interventions; to describe the impact of health on work participation; and to understand how individual and societal influences impact work status as a key outcome. Accurate measurement is the basis of scientific evaluation. Standardized and reliable measures of outcomes enable objective comparisons of different approaches, treatments, and strategies. Work disability is a particularly important outcome, as it represents the majority of societal burden for many common conditions (Waddell 2006). Work disability prevention and returning to work are both processes as well as outcomes and, thus, can be measured in terms of engagement in a process, attainment of a specific status, and changes over time. Simply measuring whether or not a return to work (RTW) has occurred is insufficient to represent a broader range of related outcomes, such as how well people are doing after an RTW, what types of work they can perform, and their prospects for and concerns about future employment activities (Krause et al. 2001). Further complexity is evident when considering alternative measurement approaches and viewpoints of different stakeholders involved in work disability, where alternative priorities and values lead to different ideas about what is most important to measure and when.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Disability Research, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, 71 Frankland Road, Hopkinton, MA, 01748, USA

    Glenn Pransky

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  1. Glenn Pransky
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Correspondence to Glenn Pransky .

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  1. University of Toronto, College Street 155, Toronto, M5T 3M7, Ontario, Canada

    Patrick Loisel

  2. EMGO Institute for Health and Care Resea, Department of Public and Occupational He, VU University Medical Center, AMC-UMCG-UWV-VUmc, Amsterdam, NL-1081 BT, Netherlands

    Johannes R. Anema

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Pransky, G. (2013). Measurement of Outcomes in WDP: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations and Recommendations for Measuring Outcomes. In: Loisel, P., Anema, J. (eds) Handbook of Work Disability. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6214-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6214-9_7

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