Health & Work Productivity

by Kessler, Ronald C.; Stang, Paul E.

• ISBN13: 9780226432120
• ISBN10: 0226432122
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

A recent study of productivity in the workplace revealed that workers spend on average eight percent of their workday doing nothing. This statistic takes on greater significance when we find that health problems impact employee productivity loss by an even greater percentage. In light of this discovery, a group of leading experts from the emerging field of health and productivity research argues that the expansion of health care benefits represents a substantial investment opportunity for employers. Health and Work Productivity presents state-of-the-art health and productivity research that suggests interventions aimed at prevention, early detection, and best-practice treatment of workers along with an informed allocation strategy can produce significant cost-benefits for employers. Contributors cover all the major aspects of this new area of research: approaches to studying the effects of health on productivity, ways for employers to estimate the costs of productivity loss, concrete suggestions for future research developments in the area, and the implications of this research for public policy.

Author Biography

Ronald C. Kessler is professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School. He is the coeditor of several volumes, including, most recently, How Healthy Are We? A National Study of Well-Being at Midlife, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Paul E. Stang is associate professor in the College of Health Sciences at the West Chester University of Pennsylvania and executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Galt Associates, a medical risk management consulting firm.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Intersecting Issues in the Evaluation of Health and Work Productivity	p. 1
Approaches to Studying the Effects of Health on Worker Productivity
Linking Administrative Claim Data with Archival Productivity Measures to Inform Employer Decision-Making	p. 29
Simulation for Measurement of Occupational Performance	p. 54
Measuring Health-Related Work Productivity with Self-Reports	p. 66
Use of the Experience Sampling Method in Studies of Illness and Work Performance	p. 88
Estimating the Dollar Costs of Productivity Losses Due to Illness: An Application of O*NET	p. 120
Labor-Market Consequences of Health Impairments	p. 142
Stakeholder Perspectives
Overcoming Barriers to Managing Health and Productivity in the Workplace	p. 165
Investing in Health to Boost Employee Productivity: The Employer's Perspective	p. 185
The Role of Health Plans in Linking Quality of Care to Labor Outcomes: Challenges and Opportunities	p. 207
The Pharmaceutical Industry and Productivity Research	p. 224
A Regulatory Perspective on Productivity Claims: Implications for Future Productivity Research	p. 242
Investing in Health to Promote Human Capital in Developing Countries: The Importance of Productivity and Health to the World Bank	p. 253
Conclusion
Future Directions in Health and Work Productivity Research	p. 271
Contributors	p. 287
Author Index	p. 289
Subject Index	p. 297
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