Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023
The monitoring of work absenteeism can inform pandemic decision making, besides the surveillance of disease end-points like mortality and intensive care bed occupancy. For instance, high disease prevalence accompanied by elevated levels of absenteeism in the healthcare sector will increase the strai...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-09-01
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| Series: | Epidemics |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755436525000295 |
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| author | Hester Korthals Altes Jan Van De Kassteele Bram Wisse Maria Xiridou Albert Jan Van Hoek Jacco Wallinga |
| author_facet | Hester Korthals Altes Jan Van De Kassteele Bram Wisse Maria Xiridou Albert Jan Van Hoek Jacco Wallinga |
| author_sort | Hester Korthals Altes |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The monitoring of work absenteeism can inform pandemic decision making, besides the surveillance of disease end-points like mortality and intensive care bed occupancy. For instance, high disease prevalence accompanied by elevated levels of absenteeism in the healthcare sector will increase the strain on the health care system, and may necessitate adaptation of the control measures. This highlights the need to assess the association between COVID-19 disease prevalence and absenteeism in relevant economic sectors. We initiated the comprehensive monitoring and analysis of work absenteeism and developed an autoregressive time series model which combined COVID-19 prevalence as measured through syndromic surveillance, with absenteeism across various economic activity sectors in the Netherlands. The analysis was updated regularly and shared with policy makers. Overall, prevalence of COVID-19-like illnesses was the most important contributor to variation in absenteeism over the period November 2020-May 2023, with absenteeism rates varying markedly between activity sectors. Of the sectors well-covered by the absenteeism database, the Education and Logistics sectors showed the greatest contribution of a seasonal pattern independent of COVID-19 to absenteeism. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-d7bca9c249d847c5932ceef3c6bcebb7 |
| institution | Matheson Library |
| issn | 1755-4365 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-09-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Epidemics |
| spelling | doaj-art-d7bca9c249d847c5932ceef3c6bcebb72025-07-09T04:32:06ZengElsevierEpidemics1755-43652025-09-0152100841Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023Hester Korthals Altes0Jan Van De Kassteele1Bram Wisse2Maria Xiridou3Albert Jan Van Hoek4Jacco Wallinga5Center for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the Netherlands; Corresponding author.Center for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the NetherlandsResearch and Business Development, HumanTotalCare (HTC), Utrecht, the NetherlandsCenter for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the NetherlandsCenter for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the NetherlandsCenter for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the Netherlands; Department of Biomedical Data Sciences, Leiden University Medical Center, the NetherlandsThe monitoring of work absenteeism can inform pandemic decision making, besides the surveillance of disease end-points like mortality and intensive care bed occupancy. For instance, high disease prevalence accompanied by elevated levels of absenteeism in the healthcare sector will increase the strain on the health care system, and may necessitate adaptation of the control measures. This highlights the need to assess the association between COVID-19 disease prevalence and absenteeism in relevant economic sectors. We initiated the comprehensive monitoring and analysis of work absenteeism and developed an autoregressive time series model which combined COVID-19 prevalence as measured through syndromic surveillance, with absenteeism across various economic activity sectors in the Netherlands. The analysis was updated regularly and shared with policy makers. Overall, prevalence of COVID-19-like illnesses was the most important contributor to variation in absenteeism over the period November 2020-May 2023, with absenteeism rates varying markedly between activity sectors. Of the sectors well-covered by the absenteeism database, the Education and Logistics sectors showed the greatest contribution of a seasonal pattern independent of COVID-19 to absenteeism.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755436525000295Work absenteeismCOVID-19Syndromic surveillanceEconomic activity sectors |
| spellingShingle | Hester Korthals Altes Jan Van De Kassteele Bram Wisse Maria Xiridou Albert Jan Van Hoek Jacco Wallinga Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 Epidemics Work absenteeism COVID-19 Syndromic surveillance Economic activity sectors |
| title | Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 |
| title_full | Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 |
| title_fullStr | Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 |
| title_short | Work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with COVID-19-like illness prevalence in the Netherlands, 2020–2023 |
| title_sort | work absenteeism across economic activity sectors and its association with covid 19 like illness prevalence in the netherlands 2020 2023 |
| topic | Work absenteeism COVID-19 Syndromic surveillance Economic activity sectors |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755436525000295 |
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