The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries

Critique of Self-Report Methods
The use of self-report for substance use and injury is appealing for many reasons. As opposed 
to objective reports of injuries (via administrative records, for example), self-reported measures 
will more likely capture less severe injuries, such as those that do not result in a hospital visit. 
Self-reports of substance-using behaviors enable researchers to measure
 patterns of substance-
using behaviors that are difficult to objectively measure (e.g., binge drinking or substance-use 
disorders). On the other hand, there are inherent limitations to using self-report data. Self-
reported drug and alcohol use is always suspect due to systematic underreporting (Johnson and 
Fendrich, 2005). Employees may underreport injuries at work if they fear being punished for 
acknowledging a workplace injury (Dembe, 2001). Even when employees are not intentionally 
trying to give inaccurate information on a survey, poor recall will affect results when survey 
respondents are being asked to describe substance use or injuries in the past 30 days, past year, 
or throughout the entire course of their lives (Johnson and Fendrich, 2005). This may also 
affect the recall of less severe injuries, since respondents may be more likely to forget past inju-
ries that were not severe. 
Objective Measures of Injuries
Four studies used workers’ own reports of substance use and objective reports of injuries—
namely, workers’ compensation claims and medical records. An additional study used admin-
istrative records of substance use and measured injuries from administrative records kept for 
the purposes of federal reporting. These studies are presented in Table 3.2. 

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10 The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries
Table 3.2
Studies Using Objective Measures of Injury