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. 2014 Nov;56(11):1120-7.
doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000298.

State-level estimates of obesity-attributable costs of absenteeism

Tatiana Andreyeva  1 , Joerg Luedicke, Y Claire Wang
Affiliations

State-level estimates of obesity-attributable costs of absenteeism

Tatiana Andreyeva et al. J Occup Environ Med. 2014 Nov.

Abstract

Objective: To provide state-level estimates of obesity-attributable costs of absenteeism among working adults in the United States.

Methods: Nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1998 to 2008 and from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for 2012 are examined. The outcome is obesity-attributable workdays missed in the previous year because of health and their costs to states.

Results: Obesity, but not overweight, is associated with a significant increase in workdays absent, from 1.1 to 1.7 extra days missed annually compared with normal-weight employees. Obesity-attributable absenteeism among American workers costs the nation an estimated $8.65 billion per year.

Conclusions: Obesity imposes a considerable financial burden on states, accounting for 6.5% to 12.6% of total absenteeism costs in the workplace. State legislatures and employers should seek effective ways to reduce these costs.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Costs of absenteeism from work attributable to excess weight
Note. The solid black line in both panels shows productivity costs (per employed obese person per year) as the predicted difference between obese and normal weight individuals by state, sorted from low to high. The grey dashed line in the top panel shows average wages for year-round employed adults and the grey dashed line in the lower panel shows obesity rates by state. Horizontal lines show US averages. Paradoxically, productivity losses are highest in states where obesity rates are relatively low with respect to the US average since these states happen to have the highest average wages.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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