- Lowest average number of workdays: arthritis/rheumatism at 6.65 days, but most prevalent disease causing functional limitation.
- Next two, chronic lung disease at 9.84 and chronic diabetes at 10.43 days.
- Highest workday loss: cancer at 37.32 days
- Mean number of workdays lost increases with more conditions with functional limitations experienced by an individual.
***Strokes and cancer are less prevalent than the rest but have high severity, leading to significant absenteeism.

Statistics Concerning Lost Workdays for Those with Functional Limitation Chronic Diseases

- Based on the 2011-2013 National Health Interview Survey, 6.2 million full-time employees suffered from one of the seven functional limitation chronic diseases. 
- Arthritis/rheumatism caused 5.1 million employees to lose 19,411,385 workdays per year (roughly $3.54 billion per year).
- Only 1.8% of individuals had functional limitations related to cancer, but it was the second highest in loss of workday and income.
- The seven chronic diseases led to 28.2 million workdays lost, equating to roughly $4.95 billion dollars of lost income.
- For those with two or more chronic diseases and functional limitations, there is a 2.5 fold increase in the number of workdays lost compared to those with one functional limitation disease (and 5.9 fold increase compared to those without limitations in general).

Statistics Concerning Loss of Economic Input and Workdays

Results show a significant correlation between functional limitation due to chronic disease and lost workdays. For every 3 days lost by someone without functional limitations, 7 days are lost for those with such. 

University of Notre Dame

According to the Milken institute, deriving information from 2003 NCS-R data reporting that Americans took roughly 3.6 billion days off in within a two year span due to health related reasons, absenteeism led to a $127 billion loss. This paper focusses on how functional limitations due to chronic disabilities relates to loss of workdays and money. Many people with chronic illness do not have impediments to their daily activities; such limitations vary on the type and severity of disability, along with other personal factors.

Absenteeism due to Chronic Diseases

Vuong, T. D., Wei, F., &amp; Beverly, C. J. (2015). Absenteeism due to functional limitations caused by seven common chronic diseases in US workers. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 57(7), 779–784. https://doi.org/10.1097/jom.0000000000000452 

Absenteeism Due to Functional Limitations Caused by Seven Common Chronic Diseases in US Workers

- Arthritis/rheumatism
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Hypertension
- Lung disease
- Stroke

Vuong Paper: Seven Chronic Diseases Studied for Functional Limitations and Impacts on Economic Input

Main Result of Absenteeism Due to Functional Limitations of Chronic Diseases (Vuong Paper)

The authors of the paper suggest to lower absenteeism (and thus loss of workdays and economic income) by improving worker quality of life. One way to do this is through intervention/prevention services provided by empowerment organizations like Stanford CDSMP, which is proven to reduce hospitalization.

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