Employee vaccines – an ounce of prevention that saves lives, cuts costs

Infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide and are responsible for more deaths annually than cancer. They can be transmitted by a number of routes, e.g., direct/indirect contact, airborne, droplet) and have the potential to affect large populations.

The survival time and lethality of infectious diseases varies by type and the environment in which they occur. Measles, for instance, can be quickly spread strictly by air.

Fortunately, vaccines have been developed to reduce or eliminate many deadly infectious diseases. However, many people still are not vaccinated and miss work when they or their family members get sick, generating costly ripple effects.

Which begs the question: What is the cost of not vaccinating employees?

For example, influenza is highly prevalent, but a vaccination exists to assist in reducing spread of the disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• an average of 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations associated with influenza occur each year in the U.S.
• the combination of influenza and pneumonia was the eighth leading cause of death among all persons in the U.S. in 2005, accounting for 63,000 deaths
• the overall national economic burden of influenza-attributable illness for adults 18 and older is estimated at $83.3 billion
• direct medical costs for influenza in adults is estimated at $8.7 billion, including $4.5 billion for adult hospitalizations resulting from influenza-attributable illness
• influenza is responsible for substantial indirect costs ($6.2 billion annually), mainly from lost productivity; each year, among adults 18 to 64 years, 17 million workdays are lost due to influenza-related illness

Although the influenza vaccine does not shield against all types of flu, other vaccines effectively prevent their respective target diseases. Examples include vaccines for H1N1, hepatitis A and B, Lyme disease, measles, pertussis, tuberculosis, polio and smallpox. Without these vaccines, epidemics of many preventable diseases would return, resulting in amplified and pointless illness, disability and death. We are seeing this play out in Syria and Somolia, for example, where war and religious conficts prevent widespread vaccination programs.

There have been multiple studies that show the savings and importance of employee vaccination programs. One study in particular published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that employee vaccination programs yielded a mean savings of $13.66 per person vaccinated. Vaccination also generated savings 95 percent of the time.

OSHA’s Safety Pays Program is another source that can be used to demonstrate the value of vaccination programs.The OSHA calculator (based on 2009 workers’ compensation costs) shows that a contagious disease resulting in a lost-time illness costs $47,052 (direct + indirect). To recover that loss, a business making a 10 percent profit would have to attain more than $470,000 in additional sales. That is a staggering amount considering the potential for cost avoidance by simple vaccination.

Although it is difficult to quantify costs associated with people who have not been vaccinated, there is compelling research that validates the cost effectiveness of vaccination programs. Most of the research that affects companies is around influenza, but that does not negate the fact that vaccination is important as a whole for employees.

Many workers travel to areas of the world where serious infectious diseases are endemic, or they work in healthcare environments surrounded by patients with contagious diseases. What better way is there to face these diseases than being vaccinated against them? An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure (thank you, Mr. Franklin).

To learn more, click here for our white paper on Preventing and Controlling Infectious Diseases in the Workplace