Absenteeism and Employer Costs Associated With Chronic Diseases and Health Risk Factors in the US Workforce
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CDC STACKS serves as an archival repository of CDC-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other public health information authored or co-authored by CDC or funded partners. As a repository, CDC STACKS retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
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Absenteeism and Employer Costs Associated With Chronic Diseases and Health Risk Factors in the US Workforce

Filetype[PDF-365.53 KB]


English

Details:

  • Journal Article:
    Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD)
  • Personal Author:
  • Description:
    Introduction

    Employers may incur costs related to absenteeism among employees who have chronic diseases or unhealthy behaviors. We examined the association between employee absenteeism and 5 conditions: 3 risk factors (smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity) and 2 chronic diseases (hypertension and diabetes).

    Methods

    We identified 5 chronic diseases or risk factors from 2 data sources: MarketScan Health Risk Assessment and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). Absenteeism was measured as the number of workdays missed because of sickness or injury. We used zero-inflated Poisson regression to estimate excess absenteeism as the difference in the number of days missed from work by those who reported having a risk factor or chronic disease and those who did not. Covariates included demographics (eg, age, education, sex) and employment variables (eg, industry, union membership). We quantified absenteeism costs in 2011 and adjusted them to reflect growth in employment costs to 2015 dollars. Finally, we estimated absenteeism costs for a hypothetical small employer (100 employees) and a hypothetical large employer (1,000 employees).

    Results

    Absenteeism estimates ranged from 1 to 2 days per individual per year depending on the risk factor or chronic disease. Except for the physical inactivity and obesity estimates, disease- and risk-factor–specific estimates were similar in MEPS and MarketScan. Absenteeism increased with the number of risk factors or diseases reported. Nationally, each risk factor or disease was associated with annual absenteeism costs greater than $2 billion. Absenteeism costs ranged from $16 to $81 (small employer) and $17 to $286 (large employer) per employee per year.

    Conclusion

    Absenteeism costs associated with chronic diseases and health risk factors can be substantial. Employers may incur these costs through lower productivity, and employees could incur costs through lower wages.

  • Subjects:
  • Source:
  • DOI:
  • ISSN:
    1545-1151
  • Pubmed ID:
    27710764
  • Pubmed Central ID:
    PMC5055401
  • Document Type:
  • Place as Subject:
  • Volume:
    13
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:

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