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Some Uses of Industrial Sickness-Absence Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2014

P. A. B. Raffle
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Extract

During the 1930s there were allegations that London bus drivers and conductors had an undue amount of sickness, especially gastric disorders. Dr Bradford Hill (1937) was asked to investigate this allegation, but found that the data were limited. The London Passenger Transport Board determined that in the future adequate data for such investigations should be available. This was not possible until after the war. In 1948 the Central Record of Staff Statistics was set up to compile sickness-absence statistics and for other purposes. This lecture is mainly an account of the uses made of the statistics produced: how they can be used to study the effect of sick pay provisions, the secular trend of sickness absence in occupational groups, and the differences in sickness-absence experience between groups of various kinds. If the experience of these groups is related to the employees' work and the conditions under which it is done, the results are valuable in answering questions on health from management and unions. The data collected can also be used in medical administration and for research into the causation of disease.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Staple Inn Actuarial Society , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , October 1966 , pp. 71 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Institute of Actuaries Students' Society 1966

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References

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