This study documents the costs of heroin addiction in the United States, both to the addict and society at large. Using a cost-of-illness approach, costs were estimated in four broad areas: medical care, lost productivity, crime, and social welfare. We estimate that the cost of heroin addiction in the United States was US$21.9 billion in 1996. Of these costs, productivity losses accounted for a...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is largely preventable and prevention expenditures are relatively low. The randomised controlled SPRING-trial (SPRING-RCT) shows that cardiovascular risk management by practice nurses in general practice with and without self-monitoring both decreases cardiovascular risk, with no additional effect of self-monitoring. For considering future approaches of c...

BACKGROUND In general, hypothyroidism can be adequately treated with a consistent daily dose of levothyroxine. However, the need for levothyroxine dose adjustments is frequent in clinical practice. The extent to which levothyroxine dose adjustments increase the utilization of healthcare resources has not previously been described in the clinical literature. OBJECTIVE The primary objective of ...

BACKGROUND This study aimed at describing pain-related health care resource use, direct costs, and productivity loss among patients suffering from fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). METHODS A cost-of-illness study with a sample of 57 adults having a diagnosis of FMS was conducted in the province of Quebec (Canada). Data regarding FMS-related direct costs and productivity loss from paid and unpaid w...

Value of Hearing Conservation................................................................................................6 Quality of Life: The Value of Good Hearing......................................................................6 Quality of Life: Quiet Ears .................................................................................................8 On-the-Job Communication........

Objectives: To determine and compare the impact of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and psoriasis on work productivity, to calculate the productivity costs (PC), and to map out factors that influence (functional status and disease activity) work productivity. Methods: The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire was used to evaluate productivity losses of p...

Performance is critical to the success of today’s software systems. However, many software products fail to meet their performance objectives when they are initially constructed. Fixing these problems is costly and causes schedule delays, cost overruns, lost productivity, damaged customer relations, missed market windows, lost revenues, and a host of other difficulties. This chapter presents so...

BACKGROUND The health condition of workers is known to impact on productivity outcomes. The relationship between health and productivity is of increasing interest amid the need to increase productivity to meet global financial challenges. Prevalence of psychological distress is also of growing concern in Australia with a two-fold increase in the prevalence of psychological distress in Australia...

BACKGROUND Despite preventive efforts, influenza epidemics are responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality every year in the United States (US). Vaccination strategies to reduce disease burden have been implemented. However, no previous studies have systematically estimated the annual economic burden of influenza epidemics, an estimate necessary to guide policy makers effectively. OBJ...

OBJECTIVE Growing evidence demonstrates a relationship between excess health risk and preventable productivity loss. There is a need to quantify how much lost productivity is avoidable through employer-sponsored health management interventions. This study introduced the Normal Impairment Factor (NIF) to recognize the amount of productivity loss that cannot be mitigated through health management...