Stay-at-Work/ Return-to-Work (SAW/RTW) Models and Strategy Study - Evaluation Design Options Report

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Release Date: December 01, 2020

Stay-at-Work/ Return-to-Work (SAW/RTW) Models and Strategy Study - Evaluation Design Options Report

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Topic

Behavioral Interventions ,  Employment and Training

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About the Report

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Stay-at-Work/Return-to-Work (SAW/RTW) programs intend to help a worker who experiences an illness or injury to remain at work, or if the worker has left the labor force, to return as soon as medically possible. The report presents five options for new research to build evidence about the target populations for SAW/RTW and to test the effects of interventions on employment outcomes.

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Key Takeaways

  • Three strategies focus on providing targeted information to workers, employers, and medical professionals to help improve employment outcomes. Each of these groups plays an integral role in the SAW/RTW process. However, these groups may lack critical information to make choices or policies that encourage continued work.
  • One strategy tests the impact of financial incentives by providing temporary disability insurance partial benefits to workers who are unable to work due to a medical condition. Partial payments may increase incentives to work, because workers can continue receiving part of their benefit while working part-time.
  • Identifying workers at risk of exiting employment or the labor force because of an injury or illness and determining when to intervene are major challenges for SAW/RTW programs. One strategy developed by this project is to construct a new data source that would match nationally representative data to administrative records to support descriptive analyses of the target population.

Citation

Nichols, A., Grosz, M., Prenovitz, S., Gubits, D., Wood, M., Stuart, J.B., Epstein, Z., Sierks, C. (2020) Abt Associates. Stay-at-Work/Return-to-Work (SAW/RTW) Models and Strategies Evaluation Design Options Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.