Developing a novel composite index for monitoring occupational health and wellbeing: A case study in the rail sector in Great Britain

Abstract

The high economic and social burden of poor physical and mental health among workers calls for strategies to support and protect workforce health. Monitoring occupational health and wellbeing through the consistent and systematic use of data is considered to contribute substantially to designing evidence-based policies that improve outcomes for workers. The purpose of this paper is to expand on current efforts to enhance monitoring practices by introducing a novel approach to developing a composite Health and Wellbeing Index (HWI). HWI can combine a range of areas (for example, sickness absence, exposure to health risks, key health and mental wellbeing) based on valuation methodologies from health economics. The cost of different outcomes to companies, individuals and society is identified using Willingness to Pay (WTP) and Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) methods. These costs are compared with estimates of the value society attaches to preventing a fatality to arrive at weightings that reflect each HWI component’s monetary equivalence to the cost of a fatality. Based on this method, different components are transformed into comparable units and are added together to calculate a headline metric. A version of HWI that is tailored to the needs of the rail sector in Great Britain was developed in collaboration with the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to drive improvements in the sector’s performance. The new index can be used to track progress over time, benchmark against best practice, identify areas for improvement and develop a robust evidence base for policy design and investment decisions.