Research informing public policy: Workers’ compensation in California

Doors open 4:00 p.m.
Lecture starts 4:30 p.m.
Reception 5:30 p.m.

Design Exchange
234 Bay Street, 2nd Floor
Toronto, Ontario

Robert Reville
RAND

Today, California and Ontario are global leaders in supporting research on workers’ compensation and applying this research to improve public policy. California has used research repeatedly over the past ten years to shape a series of reforms to its workers’ compensation system. Among the most significant changes, California adopted a new system for using empirical data to set compensation for permanent disability based on a concept developed and recommended by the RAND Corporation.

As the leader of the permanent disability study and other studies on the performance of the California workers’ compensation system over this past decade, Dr. Robert Reville will show how research informed public policy. He will give examples in the areas of improving return-to-work outcomes for disabled workers, the adequacy of benefits for workers experiencing permanent impairment and challenges in ensuring fairness in the adjudication of workers’ compensation benefits.

The work of Dr. Reville and his colleagues at RAND has influenced policy reform in California. Many of the lessons from this experience will be relevant to our Canadian context.

About presenter

Dr. Robert T. Reville is a senior economist at RAND whose research focuses on insurance and compensation for accidents and injuries. From 2002 to 2008, Dr. Reville served as director of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice (ICJ). He has conducted a range of innovative studies examining the performance of the workers’ compensation system in California, with support from the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation. Dr. Reville holds an appointment as an adjunct scientist at the Institute for Work & Health.

About the Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture

The annual Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture honours the significant contribution of Dr. Alf Nachemson to the use of research evidence in clinical decision-making. Dr. Nachemson was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon and researcher from Sweden, and a founding member of the Institute for Work & Health’s Scientific Advisory Committee.  The lectureship is awarded to a prominent national or international individual who has made a significant and unique contribution to evidence-based practice or policy-making in the prevention of work-related injury, illness or disability.