What You Should Know:
– New data from Nomi Health reveals a counterintuitive trend dubbed the “MSK Paradox”: white-collar employees report significantly higher rates of musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders than their blue-collar counterparts.
– A national analysis of 435 employers showed that employees in office-based, professional roles had 38% higher MSK rates than skilled laborers. The study found that 27% of office workers reported incidents of back pain, compared to just 18% of those in physical jobs. The finding challenges long-held assumptions about workplace health, where job titles have often been used as proxies for health risks.
Understanding Workforce Archetypes
To provide a more informed healthcare strategy, Nomi Health developed a data science model that moves past traditional industry codes and job titles. Instead, the model focuses on healthcare behavior and consumption to group companies into nine distinct archetypes. The model, which analyzed data from over 400 companies, achieved a 95.4% match rate between a company’s behavior and its assigned archetype.
This new model also revealed another surprising trend: a high salary does not always indicate better social determinants of health (SDoH). This is referred to as the “Economic Insecurity Paradox”.
The Economic Insecurity Paradox
The data shows that finance workers, who earn nearly three times more than retail employees ($131,665 vs. $46,448), score worse on economic insecurity risk and overall SDoH risk scores. For example, the economic insecurity score for finance workers was 41.8, compared to 38.8 for retail employees (where a higher number indicates greater barriers).
At the same time, finance workers have better access to healthcare and digital services, highlighting the complex and sometimes contradictory reality of social risk. This finding suggests that a person’s job type and work environment create social patterns that salary alone cannot explain.
The Strategic Edge of Behavior-Driven Benefits
Most employers still compare their performance to others in their same industry. However, this “broad-brush approach” can hide what is truly happening within a workforce. The Nomi Health model provides three key advantages for employers looking to improve their healthcare strategy.
- Speed to strategy: Employers can identify their healthcare archetype in minutes and get early visibility into cost drivers and utilization patterns.
- Precision targeting: Companies can benchmark their performance against others that behave like theirs, not just those that share a similar industry label.
- Predictive planning: The model allows employers to design their next moves based on the proven behavioral patterns of similar organizations.
