Grant: Project Grant

Osteoarthritis of the spine, hip and knee rank among the leading causes of functional impairment in middle-aged individuals globally. Surgical intervention for these conditions improves function and quality of life, yet relatively little is known about the impact of these procedures on employment and earnings. As the strain on the health system rises, economic factors continue to move to the forefront of health policy decision-making. While surgical interventions are often costly, these procedures have been shown to reduce subsequent healthcare usage and may return individuals to gainful employment. To appreciate the societal impact, a much broader understanding of labour market outcomes after surgical intervention is needed. The aim of this research project is to evaluate the effect of surgical intervention on employment and earnings for patients with osteoarthritis of the spine, hip and knee. Primarily, we will focus on the change in total annual earnings attributable to surgical intervention for each condition. This will be studied using a national population-based cohort derived by linking Canadian healthcare and income tax data. The single-payer, universal healthcare system in Canada provides a unique opportunity to study this important question. The results of this project will have far-reaching implications. The findings will help guide critical health policy decision-making in an era of increasingly scarce resources. Moreover, this project will establish a pipeline for the evaluation of labour market effects of healthcare interventions at a national population level and will serve to support numerous future research endeavours.