The role of health risk factors and disease on worker productivity

The costs attributed to employee health problems are usually measured by em ployers in terms of direct health care costs, such as medical plan claims. Although it has been understood that employee health problems also produce indirect costs for employers, their measurement has been far less frequent, At best, studies have recorded one component of indirect health costs: the time lost to employee absenteeism and disability. The study presented here includes a measure of the actual decrease in the productivity of employees while they are on the job, in addition to measures of absenteeism and disa bility, These three measurements were combined to produce a Worker Producti vity Index (WPI). The WPIs of 564 telephone customer-service agents were co rrelated with the employees' number and type of health risks, as measured b y a Health Risk Appraisal. Additionally, the WPI was also examined across d ifferent disease states in the same population of employees. As the number of health risks increased an employee's productivity decreased. The nature of the health risk, may also differentially affect the pattern of the decre ase. Finally, disease states were also associated with different patterns o f productivity reduction.