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To determine whether the jurisdiction in which a work-related injury compensation claim is made is an independent predictor of duration of time off work following work injury, and if so, the magnitude of the effect.

Eight Australian state and territory workers' compensation systems, providing coverage for more than 90% of the Australian labour force. Administrative claims data from these systems were provided by government regulatory authorities for the study.

95 976 Australian workers with workers' compensation claims accepted in 2010 and with at least 2 weeks of compensated time off work.

Duration of time lost from work in weeks, censored at 104 weeks.

After controlling for demographic, worker, injury and employer factors in a Cox regression model, significant differences in duration of time loss between state and territory of claim were observed …