The Effect of Self Administered Workers' Compensation on Employee Safety Programs

Abstract

Smitha, Matt W., The Effect of Self Administered Workers’ Compensation on Employee Safety Programs. Master of Public Health, December 1997, 72 pp., three tables, seven figures, reference list, 28 titles. In Texas nonsubscribers to workers’ compensation have been under ongoing attack as powerful interest groups such as casualty insurance carriers have lobbied for an end to the elective system. Seventy-two nonsubscribing Texas companies were surveyed. Logistic regression with an alpha level of p=0.05 found the safety program qualitative score, Wald (1)=10.1992, p=0.0014 to be a significant predictor of increased management attention to safety while the other variables of total losses, frequency rate, and severity rate together in the same model were found to not be significant predictors of the same dependent response. Eighty-one percent of organizations surveyed reported that management attention to safety had increased after the company became a nonsubscriber.