The Health and Productivity Impact of Chronic Conditions Report: Depression and other Mood Disorders

Mood disorders, diagnosed most commonly as depression, not only degrade the quality of employees’ lives — these disorders have business costs for employers and the economy at-large. The findings from IBI’s series on the health and productivity impact of chronic conditions provide a scalable benchmark of what depression 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, depression in the workforce costs about $232,000 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 depression).