Poor workplace health costing N.S. billions
Posted Jun 17, 2010 05:22:13 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
We smoke too much, we drink too much, we weigh too much and we eat too much.
A new report on the state of the province’s workforce finds it’s unsustainable because of lousy health.
The study, done for novaknowledge, notes having a workforce in such poor shape will cost the province roughly $4.5 billion dollars this year alone.
That’s the cost of healthcare, insurance premiums, workers’ compensation and so on.
Lead researcher Chris Hornberger says the study looked at several indicators of health including weight, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, mental health and cancer.
“We concluded that what we have is a pretty unhealthy workforce based on the indicators that we looked at,” she said.
Hornberger says almost a quarter of us smoke, 20 per cent of us are drinking too much and two-thirds are overweight or obese.
“That means they have a body mass index of over 25, and we’re the second-worst in the nation,” she said.
In addition to poor health, Hornberger notes there were 109,384 work weeks lost in 2009 because of illness or injuries.
