# Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Economic Consequences of Occupational Injuries

> **NIH ALLCDC R01** · RAND CORPORATION · 2024 · $611,871

## Abstract

Project Summary
Racial and ethnic disparities in both economic and health outcomes are pervasive in the United States, so it is
plausible that racial and ethnic minorities may experience worse health and economic burden resulting from
occupational injuries and illnesses. Research on the financial losses caused by workplace injury has relied on
administrative data with little or no information on race and ethnicity, however, and so racial and ethnic
disparities in the economic consequences of workplace injuries have not yet been studied.
This study would overcome this data limitation by imputing race and ethnicity information in a large database of
earnings linked to workers' compensation claims from California. Our key innovation will be to apply a validated
imputation algorithm known as modified Bayesian Improved First Name Surname Geocoding (mBIFSG) to
workers' compensation claims with linked earnings data, allowing us to estimate racial and ethnic differences in
economic outcomes after injury. Our observational research design will use workers with minor, medical-only
injuries as a comparison group for workers with lost-time injuries, a strategy that has been widely used in past
research. This approach will enable us to document, for the first time, whether there are racial and ethnic
disparities in post-injury employment, earnings, workers' compensation benefits, or wage replacement rates.
We will also use Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions and related methods to explore mechanisms that drive
differences in post-injury economic outcomes, focusing on those that are amenable to policy interventions.
The specific aims of this project are:
 1. Using administrative data on California workers' compensation claims linked to unemployment insurance
 earnings data, impute race and ethnicity using the validated RAND mBIFSG algorithm.
 2. Estimate the causal effect of workplace injury on earnings and employment for up to five years after
 injury, and test whether there are race and ethnicity disparities in the economic consequences of injury.
 3. Measure the extent to which racial and ethnic disparities in the economic consequences of injury reflect
 differences in target characteristics such as job physical demands and, workplace job security, observed
 non-target characteristics like age, or unobserved factors (including employment discrimination).
 4. Estimate the degree to which workers' compensation benefits replace lost earnings and determine the
 extent to which benefits and replacement rates vary by race and ethnicity.
This work will advance our understanding of disparities in the burden of occupational injury and illness and the
mechanisms that drive them. Study findings will offer guidance for policymakers and researchers about where
to focus future efforts at reducing disparities. By developing data necessary to study disparities in the nation's
largest workers' compensation system, this project will also build a foundation for future study.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10914633
- **Project number:** 5R01OH012578-02
- **Recipient organization:** RAND CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael Dworsky
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $611,871
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2027-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10914633

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10914633, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Economic Consequences of Occupational Injuries (5R01OH012578-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10914633. Licensed CC0.

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