Diabetes Costs Employers $20B A Year

A new study has found that diabetes costs employers in the United States about $20 billion a year sick days. That $20B comes from 57 million unplanned sick days and is a goodly portion of the total costs diabetes has on the American economy.

The report was compiled by Gallup and Sharecare as part of a health and wellness survey. Diabetes is present in about 11.5 percent of the adult population in America and has a steady growth rate throughout.

The total cost of diabetes to the U.S. economy is about $266 billion.

The survey found that as diabetes' prevealence increases, so do its costs to the economy. A one percentage point increase in prevalence, as was found between 2008 to 2016, meant about $19.2 billion in added economic costs, mostly in related healthcare expenditures.

The Gallup report also correlated the costs of both diabetes and obesity on the American economy. The prevalence of both are closely linked, matching the correlative studies that have been done comparing type 2 diabetes with obesity risks.

Gallup also found that about 6.3 percent of employees in full-time jobs are diabetic and miss about 5.5 workdays per year on average. That results in a $16 billion cost to employers. The prevalence for part-time employees is higher, at 9.1 percent, but results in fewer missed work days (4.3 per year) with lower costs to employers at $4.4 billion.

The Gallup-Sharecare poll was taken via telephone from a subset of 354,473 interviews with American adults from January, 2015 to December, 2016. The report from Gallup notes the known correlations between diabetes and other health issues. Comorbidities can include heart attack, depression, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

Source: Managedcaremag.com