Economic Burden and Productivity Loss of Employees with Lifestyle Diseases in Sedentary Occupations During Pandemic
Over the past few decades, the prevalence of Lifestyle Diseases or Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have increased. There has been an increasing concern about these lifestyle diseases, with hypertension acting as the most prevalent lifestyle disease in the populace. It further exaggerates the issue as its prevalence increases exposure to other lifestyle diseases such as Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD). With health being an important component of human capital, the presence of lifestyle diseases has an economic impact on the individual and the organisation. The presence of an illness reduces the productivity level delivered by the individual to work, resulting in productivity loss. Apart from impacting an employee's productivity, the prevalence of lifestyle diseases incurs a significant monetary expense in the form of healthcare required to manage them. This monetary expense is called an economic burden or out-of-pocket expenditure. On these grounds, the current study examines the economic burden and impact on the productivity of employees suffering from lifestyle diseases (Hypertension, Diabetes and CVD) working in sedentary occupations. With lifestyle diseases majorly influenced by the lifestyle patterns of an individual, employees working in a sedentary occupation are at greater exposure to lifestyle diseases and hence were selected as the target population. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 426 employees of sedentary occupations in the Delhi-NCR region. The economic burden has been measured as a sum of the direct and indirect costs of the diseases incurred in a year. Using the estimates of economic burden, Catastrophic Healthcare Expenditure (CHE) was measured at different threshold levels. The study has also evaluated productivity loss through presenteeism and absenteeism approaches. An attempt was made to examine the relationship between the economic burden 7 and productivity loss through presenteeism and absenteeism approaches. The result of the study shows a significant share of the economic burden for lifestyle diseases and their comorbidities. CHE was highest at the 40% threshold level. The level of disparity in catastrophe among lower and high-income individuals was also highest at the 40% threshold level. Further statistical results show a high cost of absenteeism due to lifestyle diseases compared to presenteeism and found that economic burden has a strong positive relationship with absenteeism and presenteeism. Overall, the study concludes that lifestyle disease incurs a substantial economic burden and CHE for employees working in sedentary occupations. The estimate for the same increases if multiple lifestyle diseases are present. Further, the impact of catastrophe is more for low-income than high-income individuals due to the limited availability of resources to manage the health issue. Apart from causing monetary expense, the presence of lifestyle diseases also causes a high cost of absenteeism and presenteeism, increasing the economic cost of managing lifestyle diseases.