The Health and Productivity Impact of Chronic Conditions Report: Back Pain

Back pain is caused by conditions such as intervertebral disc disorders or ankylosing spondylitis not only degrades the quality of employees' lives -- it has business costs for employers and the economy at-large. The findings from IBIs series on the health and productivity impact of chronic conditions provide a scalable benchmark of what back pain costs employers and shows what they stand to gain from helping employees prevent, treat, and manage this condition. Overall, for every 1,000 U.S. employees, back pain in the workforce costs about $442,000 in excess healthcare treatments and lost work time. This does not include the value of returns to lost labor inputs, early exits from the labor force, excess turnover costs and presenteeism (underperformance on the job due to back pain). Full analysis can be found in the report.