Feasibility of Linking Data Sets to Support HSE's Health and Work Evaluation Support

Reducing work-related ill health (with a specific focus on mental health and stress) is a key strategic objective in HSE's strategy from 2022-2032 Protecting people and places: HSE strategy 2022 to 2032 In order to achieve this a significant amount of co-ordinated activity will need to be directed at this objective from across the organisation. It is planned that HSE will evaluate the impact of its activity on delivering this strategic objective over the coming years. An evaluation framework has now been agreed and as part of developing the measures which might form part of this framework, we need to commission a feasibility study to provide an understanding of what data are available that could provide useful end-points to help evaluate HSE's activity in this area. The study will consider data that HSE holds or has access to already (for example the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and The Health and Occupation Reporting Network (THOR) https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/sources.pdf ), but also data sets held by other organisations (for example, health records, long-term cohorts). The key health outcomes of interest are work related stress and mental health and, occupational lung disease and work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

It will also be important to consider the challenges of linking these data sets (e.g., data sharing, legal agreements, meta data, ethics etc.), the strengths and limitations of the data available, the benefits associated with linking the data compared to the costs, and what changes can be attributed to HSE activity. Overall, this feasibility study should provide important information to enable decisions to be made about whether there is significant value to HSE to conduct work to link a range of data sets to support our evaluation activity.

This work will also be used to inform our approach to health surveillance, monitoring and record keeping in law as well as the impact work has on health outcomes.

Further information can be found within the document set

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