Data Element

Employment Status
Description

This data element includes a coded concept, Employment Status, with time and date stamp and/or start date and end date. A person can be both employed and retired, and can have a different employment status for each job. Employment Status is a person's self-reported, coded relationship to working for pay, family earnings, or training (e.g. having one or more jobs, searching for work, etc.). A person’s Employment Status is independent of Job characteristics, e.g., not “full-time work” or “part-time work,” because many people have more than one job.

Comment

CDC's Comment for draft USCDI v5

CDC supports the inclusion of Employment Status in USCDI V5. This data element provides mutually exclusive possible answers, moving away from an approach where users are forced to select only one from choices that are not mutually exclusive. It can be coupled with other ODH data elements (e.g., Retirement Date), to collect complete information.  

Employment status as part of a social history has 3 possible terms in its value set. ODH currently codes these values using its own codes but will change to using the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) codes for the same terms, in alignment with the Gravity Project. Epic has implemented the same approach in its Social History section. 
CDC suggests moving the data element to the new Observations data class to align with their representation in Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) standards, improving visibility for implementers. 

CDC's Consolidated Comment

  • CDC requests that Employment Status (Level 1) be reconsidered for inclusion in USCDI V3. It is well supported by the ODH informatics products and is represented in multiple interoperability standards. Collecting Employment Status of a person can reduce the burden of data collection- people who are not employed would not be asked to provide job information. Knowing a person’s Employment Status can also help to explain missing job data, which helps public health data analyses. In addition, it can assist clinicians to know more about their patient without taking time during the visit to ask about it and might help overcome patients’ reluctance to say that they are not working.
  • The Employment Status (Level 1) data element is distinct from the Employment (Comment level, SDOH data class) data element in ONDEC. Employment Status (Level 1) is a single status per person (mutually-exclusive values). Employment (Comment level, SDOH data class) is based on the “type and conditions of employment,” i.e., a Job. A person working multiple jobs, or who has retired and taken another job, cannot provide a single entry about themselves using the related value set under development.
  • As noted by the Gravity project and CDC/NIOSH, Employment Status is a SDOH. Unlike the Employment data element in the SDOH data class (Comment level), the ODH value set for Employment Status (Level 1) provides an option to identify people who are not in the labor force vs unemployed, which can be an important distinction regarding a person’s health and benefits (Silver SR, Li J, Quay B. Employment status, unemployment duration, and health‐related metrics among US adults of prime working age: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2018–2019.Am J Ind Med. 2022;65:59‐71. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajim.23308).

 

 

IN THE FIRST USE CASE DESCRIPTION, AFTER THE FIRST PARAGRAPH (ENDING WITH “…HTTPS://WWW.HL7.ORG/GRAVITY/) AND BEFORE THE SECOND PARAGRAPH (BEGINNING WITH “EMPLOYMENT STATUS IS EXPECTED…”) ADD THE FOLLOWING LANGUAGE:

 

  • "The ODH value set for Employment Status provides an option to identify people who are not in the labor force vs unemployed, which can be an important distinction regarding a person’s health and benefits (Silver SR, Li J, Quay B. Employment status, unemployment duration, and health‐related metrics among US adults of prime working age: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2018–2019.Am J Ind Med. 2022;65:59‐71. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajim.23308). It also provides mutually-exclusive entries for a person, which is not the same as for a job (e.g., a person who is both retired and working in a part-time job is employed)."

 

REPLACE THE ADDITIONAL SPECIFICATIONS FIELD (ENTIRE SECTION) WITH:

  • HL7 CDA® R2.1 IG: Consolidated CDA Templates for Clinical Notes; Occupational Data for Health, R2.1 – US Realm. http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=522 (Modular template for non-breaking insertion of Employment Status (and/or other ODH sections) for any CDA IG social history section)
  • HL7 FHIR R4.0.1 Profile: Occupational Data for Health (ODH), R1, STU 1.1. http://hl7.org/fhir/us/ecr/ (Modular template for non-breaking insertion of Employment Status (and/or other ODH profiles) for any FHIR IG social history section)
  • HL7 CDA R2 IG Public Health Case Report – the Electronic Initial Case Report (eICR), R2, STU R3 – US Realm. http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=436
  • IHE Patient Care Coordination (PCC) Technical Framework (TF) Supplement: CDA Content Modules, Revision 2.8 – Trial Implementation. https://www.ihe.net/resources/technical_frameworks/#pcc (Modular template for non-breaking insertion of Employment Status (and/or other ODH sections) for any CDA profile social history section)
  • Wallace B, Luensman GB, Storey E, Brewer L. “A Guide to the Collection of Occupational Data for Health: Tips for Health IT System Developers” https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2022-101/
  • HL7 EHRS-FM R2: Functional Profile; Work and Health, R1 – US Realm. http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=498

Unified Comment from CDC

CSTE supports inclusion of this measure into USCDI v3: Very supportive of including work information in USCDI – important for assessing increased risk of conditions related to I/O

  • Specific job title and workplace address are also critical for outbreak investigation

Unified Comment from CDC

  • In the preamble to the 2015 Rule, ONC expressed support for collection of employment status of “unemployed” could lead to referral for services. The Occupational Data for Health (ODH) value set for Employment Status distinguishes between unemployed (seeking employment) and not in labor force (not seeking employment). 
     
  • Potential champions from more than 13 healthcare organizations have expressed interest in piloting collection and use of ODH, which include employment status, if it were available in their EHR. The complexity of implementing and maintaining ODH as a unique build within their EHR has been the roadblock.  

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