Intelligence and Impact on Sick Leave

The below blog is dedicated to Aaron. He never takes a sick day. Ever. At some point he can cash all those days in and buy a house in Rock Creek.

Okay, here's the blog.

A recently published study, from the UK, offers an interesting theory that the better people performed on childhood intelligence tests, the less likely they were to end up on long-term sick leave. The study involved over 23,000 people whose cognitive abilities were tested in 1946, 1958 and 1970. The ranking of cognitive ability was based on testing both the verbal and nonverbal intelligence. Okay. So now there is a clear link between low intellectual ability and long-term work absences?

• In the 1946 group, 47% of those who were on long-term sick leave had been in the bottom quarter of childhood ability, compared to 13% who were in the highest category.
• Approximately 41% of those off sick from the 1958 group were in the lowest quartile of ability, while 32% of the 1970 interviewees were also in this category.

The authors claimed that strategies to reduce long-term sick leave should involve education. "Our findings suggest that health is only one factor in understanding long-term sickness absence." The U.K. report, written by experts including Max Henderson of King's College London, concluded: "Long-term sick leave is a complex outcome with many risk factors beyond health."

Let's talk about the U.S. for a moment. In 2010 a report in The New York Times addressed the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. This study tracked the 1957 graduates of the state's high schools, approximately 10,000 people, and noted that "those who finished in the top quartile were, overall, half as likely to experience the declines in health that their peers who graduated in the lowest quartile were experiencing." The study, started at UW-Madison in 1957 as a survey of high school seniors' post-graduation plans, evolved into a study of the entire life course. Education, career, family, aging and retirement.

My question to you, is there really a correlation between intelligence levels and the likelihood that someone will end up on long-term sick leave?

Will employers begin testing employees intelligence levels to determine the likelihood of potential long-term sick leave, and therefore the potential impact to benefits?

So, who is regularly sick where you work?