Level-I trauma center effects on return-to-work outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Injury is the leading cause of death for persons aged 1-44 years in the United States. Injuries have a substantial economic cost. For that reason, regional systems of trauma care in which the more acutely injured patients are transported to Level-I (L-I) trauma centers (TCs) has been widely advocated. However, the cost of TC care is high, raising questions about the value of such an approach.OBJECTIVES: To study L-I TC effectiveness and study return-to-work (RTW) outcomes.RESEARCH DESIGN: Using data from National Study on the Costs and Outcomes of Trauma, the authors address the issue of selection bias by comparing naive estimates to matching techniques, as well as to nonlinear instrumental variable models (2SRI) and bivariate probit estimators