What is this about?
This edition of Connections provides a recently released special report that uses authoritative sources to document the usual additional health and productivity costs associated with unhealthy lifestyle choices. Using a variety of peer-reviewed articles, the authors have constructed a very useful framework for educating senior management and all employees on the employer’s financial burden associated with their employees’ unhealthy habits. The data is presented in per employee per year costs for both additional health plan costs as well as lost productivity costs. This kind of data is what allows us to create better funded and better-designed wellness and well-being programs in U.S. workplaces.
Some of the specific annual findings per employee are presented in the table below:
| The Specific Health Habit or Risk Factor | Health Plan Cost | Productivity Losses |
| Excess stress | $413 | $301 |
| Smoking or tobacco use | $2,000 | $1,807 |
| physical inactivity | $1,429 | $482 |
| Depression | $2,184 | $649 |
| Hypertension | $2,000 | $392 |
| Obesity | $11,481 | $16,840 |
| Poor sleep habits and insomnia | $1,400 | $3,156 |
| Binge drinking and alcoholism | $89 | $581 |
| Up to Total Annual Costs* | $20,996 | $24,208 |
* = Total annual cost is up to $44,204 per employee per year.
Why is this important?
This document is important for five major reasons. First, this report collates a large number of peer review article findings into a credible framework for business decision-makers, allowing them to better understand the economic issues in employee wellness. Second, the report allows each employer to estimate the specific economic implications of their own pattern of employee health risks and habits. Third, it provides a key component of the business rationale for employers to consider wellness and well-being programs as strategically imperative business activities. Fourth, this data can be used to help reduce these costs for employers, Fifth, this data is crucial to the future funding and tasking of employee wellness and well-being programs.
What can you do with this document?
- First, download and skim the report to get a sense of the methodology and major findings.
- Next, identify how this information should be presented to senior and mid-level managers.
- Next, determine how this information should be provided to employees and their family members.
- Then, using this information provide an estimate of these health and productivity costs for your own workforce based on assumptions about the prevalence of each of these risks or habits in your workforce.
- Then, carry out the presentation of the data to both managers and employees.
- Then, revisit this information periodically to help everyone remember what is at stake.
In summary, this recent authoritative report provides an excellent and useful summary of the economic costs associated with 8 specific and highly prevalent set of health risk and health habits that are often addressed and moderated by employee wellness and well-being programs.