Restructuring Safe Work Australia's Return to Work Survey

Safe Work Australia (SWA) approached researchers at the Insurance, Work and Health Group (IWHG) to provide expert opinion on the restructure the National Return to Work Survey, administered to ~5,000 injured workers across Australia every two years. The purpose of the survey is to monitor return to work outcomes across each Australian jurisdiction and New Zealand, in addition to experiences of the return to work process.

In an effort to improve the data capture in terms of scope and relevance, SWA has reframed the survey to cover the numerous domains described in Loisel's ecological model (personal, workplace, health care, and compensation system). Our role was to identify questions that would measure each of these domains, prioritising validated and shorter questionnaires, while also focusing the survey on domains (i.e., having most items within those domains) most strongly linked to return to work outcomes.

Milestones:
22/12/2017 - Delivery of draft Consultation Summary Report (accomplished)
05/01/2018 - Customer to provide comments on draft Consultation Summary Report (accomplished)
22/01/2018 - Deliver of final Consultation Summary Report (accomplished)
14/02/2018 - Attendance and participation in RTW TAG workshop, if required by Customer (required; both Dr Lane and Prof Collie to attend)