Adding up the cost of pain

How pain quietly drains our productivity and entire economies

The far-reaching financial burden of pain is not a new problem. Statistics from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in 2011 found the annual combined costs of healthcare and lost productivity due to pain could be up to $635 billion. That’s greater than the annual costs of heart disease ($309 billion), cancer ($243 billion), and diabetes ($188 billion). And even with an increasing focus on employee wellbeing, the impact of pain on day-to-day work remains overlooked and under-researched. 

Lost working days

Pain not only hampers people’s ability to do tasks at work, but it also prevents them from attending their workplace.  Similarly, in the Haleon Pain Index 3 (HPI 3, carried out in 2017), we found an average of 7.2 days were taken off work that year because of pain. This varied across types of pain, with osteoarthritis causing the most workplace absences – over 16 days off.

The HPI 3 also revealed the personal economic impact of pain-related workplace absence, as globally 39% of these lost days were unpaid.

The scale of workplace pain

Our latest HPI survey from 2023 uncovered that regardless of whether people do desk-based roles or manual labour, 50% globally have experienced problems at work due to their pain. 

Over 6 in 10 people say their pain prevents them from focusing at work and nearly 50% say their pain makes them anxious.  A third (33%) said their pain has negatively impacted professional relationships. And nearly half (47%) find it difficult to hold conversations when in pain.  
 

Despite the widespread impact of pain on so many people’s working lives – impacting mood, sleep, sociability, patience, emotional health and productivity – conversations about pain are challenging. According to the HPI 5, only 3 in 10 workers experiencing pain have spoken to their managers or employers about it.

Plus, new research from the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) reveals that nearly 1 in 4 American office workers think being in pain is simply a part of having an office job. This misperception can lead people to suffer in silence, causing problems for team dynamics and professional relationships. It can also mean they delay treating their pain, until it diminishes their ability to do their job.

Clearly, societal attitudes play a powerful role. When people have opened up about their pain symptoms at work, more than a third feel their pain wasn’t taken seriously. In general, people’s personal pain experiences can vary by demographic groups. 
 

Promoting better pain management 

There are potential economic benefits for employers, industries and policymakers who address pain in the workplace.

According to phase 3 of the Economist Impact Health Inclusivity Index, supported by Haleon, the most common musculoskeletal issue among older adults is lower back pain – proactive care could significantly reduce its recurrence and save over $37.1 billion a year. It could also add 33 million working days per year in the economies surveyed within the Health Inclusivity Index.

Additionally, one of the biggest barriers stopping people from dealing effectively with pain, according to the latest HPI survey, is ‘health literacy’. This is a person’s ability to understand and use information to make decisions about their health. This also comes at a cost, as people with low health literacy incur almost 3x higher annual healthcare costs, due to increased medical visits and prescription medication. But with great cost comes great potential benefit: the Health Inclusivity Index (Phase 3 2025) reveals that investing in health literacy offers the greatest savings among the seven health topics studied.

For deep and long-lasting progress, though, societal attitudes towards pain in the workplace must shift. 

Haleon has several initiatives aimed at empowering workers to seek care without fear of professional repercussions. For example, Theraflu: Right to Rest & Recover advocates allowing employees the time to fully recover from illness or pain – highlighting that rest is a fundamental driver of productivity and wellbeing.

These kinds of initiatives emphasise that encouraging a workplace culture that prioritises rest and reduces the stigma surrounding pain is fundamental to easing the economic impact of pain.