A64 Group-Based Trajectory Analysis of the Economic Effects of Road Accidents on Victims: Evidence from the French Case

Abstract

Abstract Background Road accidents result often in very important economic losses to victims and their families. These losses arise mostly from the cost of treatment, the periods of sick leave and the loss of wage as well as from the need for family members to take time off work to take care of the injured. Persistence of these economic consequences for different victims has not been fully explored yet. Therefore, our knowledge of the long-run effects of road accidents is very limited. This study aims to identify homogenous categories of victims according to these long-run consequences. Methods The data used are provided by the National Security System in France. These data enable us to analyze the economic consequences for almost all road victims in France. Evolution of medical spending over time is analyzed for 24238 persons representing road victims of the year 2009. Furthermore, the trajectories for sick leave duration are analyzed for those who were active when the accident happened. Namely for 6336 persons. All the individuals under study were followed during four years after the day of accident. Group-based trajectory modeling is used to identify the groups of victims having similar patterns of medical spending and sick leave duration after the accident. Then, a multinomial logit model is performed to identify the main characteristics of each group. Results Four groups of victims are identified concerning the effect of the injury on sick leave duration. Up to 67% of victims return to work after a few months. 11.7% spend more time in sick leave which lasts typically more than one year. 5.8% of the victims experience a brief return to work before another long sick leave episode. Finally, no return to work is recorded for 15.5% of injured. For the effects of accident on medical spending, homogenous groups of victims are presented as follow: 79.4% of victims experience a slight increase of their medical spending only during the year of accident. 7.7% of victims suffer from a severe increase of their medical spending and a lower rate of decline of these spending. In case of 9.4% of victims, the effect of accident on medial spending is negligible. Whereas for the further 3.5% of individuals, the level of spending increases significantly year by year. Conclusions This study, conducted on a large population of road victims, enables us to appreciate the scale of the socioeconomic effects of road accidents. The results of the study show that the majority of road victims never experience durable economic effects. However, for a minority a victims, effects are both severe and persistent. Abstract - ID: 53 Jessica Berg (Presenter), Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) Abstract Summary: Doctoral Student