title: The Effect of the 2009 Influenza Pandemic on Absence from Work.
abstract: In July 2009, the World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic in nearly 40 years. Although the health effects of the pandemic have been studied, there is little research examining the labor productivity consequences. Using unique sick leave data from the Chilean private health insurance system, we estimate the effect of the pandemic on missed days of work. We estimate that the pandemic increased mean flu days missed by 0.042 days per person-month during the 2009 peak winter months (June and July), representing an 800% increase in missed days relative to the sample mean. Calculations using the estimated effect imply a minimum 0.2% reduction in Chile's labor supply. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Duarte
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kadiyala
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Samuel H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Masters
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Powell
mesh_terms: D002677:Chile; D016208:Databases, Factual; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D053118:Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000266:history; D058873:Pandemics / Q000266:history; D018582:Sick Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: influenza; pandemic; work loss