Half of workers with chronic health conditions say they are afraid to take time off

Posted by News Room 13 February 2025

Dive Brief:

  • Seventy-six percent of workers with chronic conditions like hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and asthma need to manage their conditions during the workday, but more than half haven’t formally shared their conditions with their company, according to the results of a national poll by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation released Feb. 11. 
  • Of the 1,010 working adults surveyed, one-third say they’ve had to skip medical appointments or delay receiving care to not interfere with work. About half of those with chronic conditions say they didn’t think they could take time off work or take a break to manage their conditions in the past year. 
  • Meanwhile, more than half of workers say they deal with physical chronic health conditions.

Dive Insight:

Companies can better support workers with chronic health conditions by having more conversations about what employees need, said survey lead Gillian SteelFisher, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program and principal research scientist at Harvard Chan School. 

“Though employers may think they know their employees’ needs, poll results suggest there are widespread and frequently hidden challenges facing workers with chronic conditions,” SteelFisher said. “Workers commonly feel stigmatized by their conditions, and this can have a profound effect on both their work and their health.”

For example, one-quarter of workers with chronic conditions say they’ve missed chances for promotions because of their conditions, and one in five say they’ve received bad reviews or negative feedback. 

In some cases, a lack of employer support for health-related problems can lead to workers leaving a job or the workforce altogether. 

Of 21 patients at a post-COVID recovery clinic who were interviewed, some with long COVID left their jobs or found alternative jobs that would better accommodate their symptoms, and others were let go for not being able to perform work tasks, according to research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in October. 

While some participants said they felt safe sharing their long COVID-related limitations with their employers, others worried about retaliation in the workplace, the researchers found.