Health and Work Productivity: Making the Business Case for Quality Health Care

by Ronald C. Kessler, Paul E. Stang

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226432120
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	04/01/2006
Series:	The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Mental Health and Development
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ronald C. Kessler is professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School. He is 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
1. Intersecting Issues in the Evaluation of Health and Work Productivity
Ronald C. Kessler and Paul E. Stang
 
Part One - Approaches to Studying the Effects of Health on Worker Productivity
2. Linking Administrative Claim Data with Archival Productivity Measures to Inform Employer Decision-Making
Paul E. Greenberg and Howard G. Birnbaum
 
3. Simulation for Measurement of Occupational Performance
Jonathan Howland, Thomas W. Mangione, and Angela Laramie
 
4. Measuring Heath-Related Work Productivity with Self-Reports
Debra J. Lerner and Jennifer Lee
 
5. Use of the Experience Sampling Method in Studies of Illness and Work Performance
Philip S. Wang and Nancy A. Nicolson
 
6. Estimating the Dollar Costs of Productivity Losses Due to Illness: An Application of O*NET
Lance Anderson, Scott H. Oppler, and Andrew Rose
 
7. Labor-Market Consequences of Health Impairments
Thomas Deleire and Willard G. Manning
 
Part Two - Stakeholder Perspectives
8. Overcoming Barriers to Managing Health and Productivity in the Workplace
Dennis P. Scanlon
 
9. Investing in Health to Boost Employee Productivity: The Employer's Perspective
James F. Murray, Sean Nicholson, Mark Pauly, and Marc L. Berger
 
10. The Role of Health Plans in Linking Quality of Care to Labor Outcomes: Challenges and Opportunities
Arne Beck
 
11. The Pharmaceutical Industry and Productivity Research
Christopher J. Evans
 
12. A Regulatory Perspective on Productivity Claims: Implications for Future Productivity Research
Paul E. Stang, Paul E. Greenberg, Howard G. Birnbaum, Ronald C. Kessler, Lynn Hoffman, and Mei-Sheng Duh
 
13. Investing in Health to Promote Human Capital in Developing Countries: The Importance of Productivity and Health to the World Bank
Harvey Whiteford
 
Part Three - Conclusion
14. Future Directions in Health and Work Productivity Research
Ronald C. Kessler and Paul E. Stang
 
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index

Editorial Reviews

The connection between health and productivity at work is intuitively obvious but has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of either researchers or corporate financial officers. Ronald Kessler and Paul Stang help to bridge the usual gap between research and the marketplace with the help of a top-notch group of the best ‘real-world’ investigators obtainable—all in the cause of making the case that employee health should be treated as an investment in business performance—thus creating the new discipline of health and productivity management.”—Sean Sullivan, president and CEO, Institute for Health and Productivity Management

Institute for Health and Productivity Management - Sean Sullivan

This work is an important step in laying both the theoretical and practical framework for health as an investment. Linking employee health status to business-relevant outcomes of absence, presenteeism and lost productivity is critical to this new paradigm.”—Thomas Parry, president, Integrated Benefits Institute


 

Integrated Benefits Institute - Thomas Parry

In this original work, contributors provide motivation for a change in perspective from the provision of medical care as a benefit only to one that is a tool for investing in worker productivity. They then provide the substantial research necessary to set up such an investment and monitoring system.”Jody Sindelar, School of Public Health, Yale University

School of Public Health, Yale University - Jody Sindelar

In this current environment of sweeping health benefit reductions and employee cost shifting, Ronald Kessler, Paul Stang, and others are in search of a different path forward. In this volume, contributors make the compelling case for Corporate America to think about health care as an investment to be managed rather than a cost to be controlled. A two-step strategy is proposed: measure the direct and indirect costs of employee illness and then target needed investments in workforce health and productivity programs. The employer community would be wise to follow this prescription starting by reading this important contribution to the field of worksite health and productivity.”—Andrew Webber, president and CEO, National Business Coalition on Health
 

National Business Coalition on Health - Andrew Webber

“In this current environment of sweeping health benefit reductions and employee cost shifting, Ronald Kessler, Paul Stang, and others are in search of a different path forward. In this volume, contributors make the compelling case for Corporate America to think about health care as an investment to be managed rather than a cost to be controlled. A two-step strategy is proposed: measure the direct and indirect costs of employee illness and then target needed investments in workforce health and productivity programs. The employer community would be wise to follow this prescription starting by reading this important contribution to the field of worksite health and productivity.”--Andrew Webber, president and CEO, National Business Coalition on Health

— Andrew Webber

National Business Coalition on Health

“This work is an important step in laying both the theoretical and practical framework for health as an investment. Linking employee health status to business-relevant outcomes of absence, presenteeism and lost productivity is critical to this new paradigm.”--Thomas Parry, president, Integrated Benefits Institute

— Thomas Parry

Integrated Benefits Institute

“The connection between health and productivity at work is intuitively obvious but has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of either researchers or corporate financial officers. Ronald Kessler and Paul Stang help to bridge the usual gap between research and the marketplace with the help of a top-notch group of the best ‘real-world’ investigators obtainable—all in the cause of making the case that employee health should be treated as an investment in business performance—thus creating the new discipline of health and productivity management.”--Sean Sullivan, president and CEO, Institute for Health and Productivity Management

— Sean Sullivan

Institute for Health and Productivity Management