ArticleBMC public health2022
Obesity- attributable costs of absenteeism among working adults in Portugal.
Article in BMC public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Obesity, Employment, and Economic Productivity in Europe: A Systematic Literature Review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- Economic costs of obesity: a systematic review.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2024Pooled it
- Beyond the chalkboard: overnutrition and cardiometabolic health among high school teachers in a semi-urban community in Southwestern Nigeria.BMC nutrition · 2026Article
- Factors Associated with the Odds, Duration, and Costs of Health-Related Absenteeism: A Population-Based Study in São Paulo City, Brazil.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Indirect costs constitute a major part of the total economic burden of obesity: a Finnish population-based cohort study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Burden of Disease and Cost of Illness of Overweight and Obesity in Portugal.Obesity facts · 2025Article
- The Burden of Obesity in Saudi Arabia: A Real-World Cost-of-Illness Study.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2025Article
- A Deep Learning Neural Network to Classify Obesity Risk in Portuguese Adolescents Based on Physical Fitness Levels and Body Mass Index Percentiles: Insights for National Health Policies.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
- Assessment of obesity stigma and discrimination among Spanish subjects with a wide weight range: the OBESTIGMA study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Quality of Life in Obese Patients from a Multidisciplinary Bariatric Consultation: A Cross-Sectional Study Comparing to a Non-Bariatric Population and to the General Population.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Correction: Obesity- attributable costs of absenteeism among working adults in Portugal.BMC public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundObesity leads to poor health outcomes and may adversely affect work productivity. This study, aimed to investigate the obesity- attributable costs of absenteeism among working adults in Portugal.
methodsThe study population included individuals actively working at baseline from the Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases Cohort (EpiDoC), a large Portuguese population-based prospective study. Body mass index was measured at baseline and in two follow-up interviews. Absenteeism in each wave of the EpiDoC was assessed by the question "Did you have a sick leave in the previous 12 months? yes/no", followed by "How many days did you miss work due to sickness in the previous twelve months?". Body mass index (BMI) was classified into underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese, based on the standard World Health Organization definition. Association between obesity and absenteeism was estimated with the negative binomial regression model adjusted for BMI, chronic diseases, and lifestyle. Obesity- attributable costs were calculated using lost gross income during the time absent from work, through the human-capital approach.
resultsThe EpiDoC included 4338 working adults at baseline. Of these, 15.2% were obese at the beginning of the study and 22.7% of the population had been absent from work in the last 12 months. Participants with obesity missed 66% more days at work (IRR: 1.66; CI 95%:1.13-2.44; (p = 0.009.) than those with normal weight. The odds of having been absent from work were 1.4 times higher in obese compared to non-obese individuals (CI 95%: 1.18-1.67; p < 0.01) adjusted to sex and type of work. Obese individuals missed 3.8 more days per year than those with normal weight (95%CI: 3.1-4.5). Extrapolating to the entire Portuguese working population, absenteeism due to obesity incurred an additional cost of €238 million per year.
conclusionObesity imposes a financial burden due to absenteeism in Portugal. Employers and national health regulators should seek effective ways to reduce these costs.
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