Abstract
Objective: To estimate the additional health care costs incurred by two U.S. manufacturing companies due to their policies related to shift work and longwork hours. Methods: We applied risk ratios from the published literature todata on 2647 workers from Company A and 1346 workers from Company Bto estimate the excess cases of several chronic conditions in the workerpopulation due to shift work and long work hours. We estimated the annualhealth care costs incurred by the companies by applying Medicare cost data. Results: Excess annual health care costs related to shift work totaled$1,394,365 and $300,297 for Companies A and B, respectively. Excessannual costs related to long work hours totaled $231,293 and $107,902 for Companies A and B, respectively. Conclusions: Excess health care costsrelated to shift work and long work hours is substantial, but may not be largeenough to compel companies to alter their work scheduling policies.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1006-1010 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of occupational and environmental medicine |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2020 |
Keywords
- employee well-being
- health care costs
- long work hours
- manufacturing
- shift work
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
