Citation

Asfaw AG, Chang CC, Ray TK. Am. J. Ind. Med. 2014; 57(2): 202-213.

Affiliation

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Office of the Director, Washington, District of Columbia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/ajim.22273

PMID

24166763

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the association between workplace mistreatment and occurrence, duration, and costs of sickness absenteeism. METHODS: We used the 2010 National Health Interview Survey and considered 13,807 employed adult respondents. We used a zero-inflated negative binomial (zinb) model to examine the association between exposure to workplace mistreatment and the occurrence and number of workdays missed due to illness/injury in the preceding 12 months. RESULTS: In 2010, 7.6% of US workers employed at the time of the survey reported having been mistreated at their workplace. Both occurrence and duration of sickness absence were higher for mistreated than for non-mistreated workers. The zinb results showed that being mistreated was associated with a 42% increase in the number of missed workdays, controlling for covariates. The marginal effect analysis showed that lost workdays differed by 2.45 days between mistreated and non-mistreated workers. This implies that workplace mistreatment was associated with $4.1 billion, or 5.5%, of sickness absenteeism costs in 2010. CONCLUSIONS: Workplace mistreatment is associated with sickness absence in the United States. While a causal relationship could not be established due to the cross-sectional design of the study, this study reveals the economic importance of developing workplace mistreatment prevention strategies. Am. J. Ind. Med. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Language: en