5.5.3. Presenteeism

Presenteeism was calculated as a function of absenteeism. In general, research on presenteeism is scarce, and represents less than one percent of all productivity-related research, based on a published review [Zhang, Bansback and Anis, 2011 [67]]. A similar, non-published review by the World Health Organization has only identified three presenteeism studies of sufficiently high quality to quantify obesity-condition related absenteeism. Further, most evidence comes from the United Kingdom and the United States, where sick leave is much less predominant than in EU countries.

As a result of the scarce evidence, a ratio of condition-specific presenteeism:absenteeism rates from a high quality productivity study was calculated and applied to the econometric absenteeism results [Goetzel et al., 2004 [20]]. For example, if diabetes led to missing seven annual work days in country X, then 7*1.8 days of presenteeism would have been observed in this country.

Fig. 5.3 Absenteeism and presenteeism ratio for select chronic conditions

Source: [Goetzel et al., 2004 [20]]