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NEW ORLEANS -- Employees were not as willing to make workplace accommodations for people with type 2 diabetes as they were for people with other chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, according to a small .
Employees who did not consider diabetes a "severe" disease and believed diabetes was not caused by genetics or age were less willing to sacrifice any of their own pay to accommodate employees with type 2 diabetes than they were willing to pay for people who had an unspecified chronic disease, reported , of the Steno Diabetes Center in Denmark, and colleagues.
Such accommodations included things such as the possibility of a part-time position, the ability to work from home, or having an additional break with pay.
When asked if it was the employer's responsibility to provide workplace accommodations for people with chronic conditions, nearly 70% believed that was true for cancer, but only 33% believed that was true for diabetes. Employees who believed the employer was not responsible for flexible working conditions were also willing to pay significantly less to accommodate employees with diabetes.
Perhaps paradoxically, though, workers who believed that unhealthy lifestyle is responsible for diabetes were not less willing to make accommodation for diabetic colleagues.
Cleal told 鶹ý that there has not been much focus on diabetes and work/life balance. Some basic epidemiological research has suggested that diabetes has been linked to early retirement, as well as workers receiving disability pensions.
"We can provide accommodations for people who have diabetes, but how do we do that and how much willingness is there to invest in that, because it will obviously come at a cost," he said at a poster presentation at the . "So, we devised these discrete choice experiments, where you could present people with different variations of options with money attached to them and ... put them through several of these questions to sort of get a value attached to different types of accommodations."
Instead of percentages, his group mainly looked at dollar amounts. The 1,103 participants taking the survey online were randomized into two groups: one answering questions about willingness to pay for diabetes and one where the same questions addressed willingness to pay for an unspecified chronic disease. Demographically, female gender, lower age, and lower education were linked to less of a willingness to pay to accommodate an employee with diabetes.
There were some surprises in the findings -- for example, the willingness to pay was somewhat higher for diabetes than chronic disease among those who believed diabetes was caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, though the difference was nonsignificant. The authors wrote this indicates "willingness to pay is not only influenced by 'individual culpability' in disease causality."
"If the question said diabetes is caused by people who eat too much, then maybe it would've been another answer," Cleal told 鶹ý.
He said he sees this as a public health issue, which indicates that increased education is necessary -- both to employers and in general -- about the problems people with diabetes have to confront in their workplace.
"This was an interesting way to put in perspective what we are up against if we want to think about what we can do for people with diabetes at work," said Cleal. "We interviewed people with diabetes in the workforce and it comes across very clearly that there are a host of issues they have to deal with and balance during any normal working day, so there is a real issue there."
Primary Source
American Diabetes Association
Cleal B, et al "Willingness to pay for workplace accommodations for people with diabetes compared to people with unspecified chronic disease" ADA 2016; Abstract 857-P.