Smokers found to take more sick days

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/31/smokers-take-more-sick-days

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Smokers miss an average of two or three more days of work each year than non-smokers, with this absenteeism costing the UK alone £1.4bn in 2011, according to a British study.

The report, which appeared in the journal Addiction, analysed 29 separate studies conducted between 1960 and 2011 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the United States and Japan, covering more than 71,000 public and private sector workers.

Researchers asked the workers about their current and former smoking habits and used surveys or medical and employee records to track how often they were absent over an average of two years.

Current smokers were 33% more likely to miss work than non-smokers and they were absent an average of 2.7 extra days per year, according to Jo Leonardi-Bee of the University of Nottingham, UK, and her colleagues.

The researchers calculated that current smokers were still 19% more likely to miss work than ex-smokers, so encouraging smokers to quit could help reverse some of the lost-work trends.

"Quitting smoking appears to reduce absenteeism and result in substantial cost savings for employers," wrote Leonardi-Bee and her colleagues.

The £1.4bn pounds lost in the UK due to smoking-related absenteeism was only one cost of smoking in the workplace, according to Leonardi-Bee and her colleagues. Others included productivity lost to smoking breaks and the cost of cigarette-related fire damage.

In the analysis smoking was tied to workers' short-term absences as well as leaves of four weeks or more.

"Clearly the most important message for any individual's health is quit smoking but I think that message is pretty well out there," said Douglas Levy, a tobacco and public health researcher from the Harvard Medical School in Boston who was not involved with the study.

"I think [the study] does point to the fact that this is something that doesn't just affect the individual, it affects the economy as well."

Levy said the most important finding was the reduction in absenteeism after workers quit smoking, supporting the idea of companies funding smoking-cessation classes and other workplace health programs.

Levy's own research showed that children living with smokers were more likely to be absent from school. Secondhand smoke has been tied to a range of health ailments, from asthma to heart attacks, so employees lighting up may also have to miss work more often to stay at home with sick family members.