U.S. Study Ties BMI to Rising Workers Compensation Claims

Take heed—results of a U.S. study echo rising trends in Canada

By Ken Moore

In April, 2007, a team of medical researchers at the Duke University published a remarkable study relating obesity in the workplace to the number of Worker’s Compensation (WC) claims submitted by employees. The results were startling. Over a period of eight years involving more than 50,000 employees the researchers were able to correlate Body Mass Index to the number of Workers Compensation claims and the dollar costs to a company.

Body Mass Index

What the researchers discovered was that there was a linear correlation between Body Mass Index (BMI) and the rate and cost of Workers Compensation claims. Body Mass Index (BMI), a number calculated from a person’s weight and height (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared), provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems. A BMI in the 18.5to24 point range is considered normal, but a BMI between 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight and greater than 30 is obese.

Employees whose BMI measured greater than 40 had 11.65 claims per 100 full-time employees (FTE), while normal-weight employees had 5.80 claims. When calculating lost work days, they determined that the effect on lost workdays was 183.63 for obese employees versus 14.19 per healthy employees. Furthermore, when calculating medical claim costs, they discovered that medical claims cost US$51,091 per 100 obese FTEs versus US$7, 503 per 100 non-obese FTEs.

The claims most affected by BMI were strongly related to the following: lower extremity, wrist or hand, back, contusions or bruises, falls or slips, lifting and exertion. The study further observed that the combination of obesity and high-risk occupation was particularly detrimental.

Obesity in the North America is viewed as an epidemic with associated high health-care costs. Forbes magazine printed a story about a University of North Carolina study that found that a population’s greater access to a Wal-Mart Supercenter or other big box food retailer “was associated with lower body-mass indexes and a lower probability of being obese.” The conclusion is that consumers buy healthier foods when their purchasing power increases.

Organizational Impact

Worker’s Compensation is a significant cost element of the total employee benefit package. Indeed, it is one of only three benefit programs required by law in all 50 states (Social Security and unemployment insurance are the other two). Over time and experience, Workers Compensation has evolved into a complex mosaic of rules and regulations that vex the best of HR, compensation and benefits managers, particularly in multi-state organizations.

It also vexes CEOs and CFOs who must budget for and pay additional premiums and expenses to WC insurance carriers that cover the employees.  Worker’s Compensation cost the country US$22.8 billion in 1982. In 2002, a SHRM study reported  costs rose to $72.9 billion. In 2006, a report by the National Academy of Social Insurance, said the costs increased to $87.6 billion.

We acknowledge that obesity is a major concern in North American society. The media reports frequently on the subject and has termed it an epidemic.

As more and more empirical research on obesity becomes available, it presents an opportunity for company leaders to incent its employees to achieve and maintain an ideal body-mass index and weight. There are dozens of individual diet plans available and many long term weight loss programs. Some are excellent and effective programs. Others are not.

If a company wishes to address its increasingly unsustainable health care costs, studies like these will aid significantly in implementing and justifying corporate support for a healthy workforce.

Ken Moore a professor of Strategic Management at SUNY-Albany in New York.