Although obese employees incur higher direct and indirect costs, the extent of obesity-related costs tends to be lower in some industrial sectors — including healthcare, reports a study in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Dominique Lejeune, MSc, of Groupe d'analyse, Ltée, Montréal, QC, Canada, analyzed variations in the relationship between obesity and healthcare and other employee costs.

A new report finds about one in three cancer survivors (34.6%) reported having chronic pain, representing nearly 5.4 million cancer survivors in the United States. The report, appearing as a Research Letter in JAMA Oncology, finds one in six survivors (16%), representing about 2.5 million people in the U.S., reported suffering from high impact chronic pain that restricts daily functioning. Those rates are about double the rates in the general population.

Tobacco companies were ordered last week to place warning statements about their products’ health effects on their websites and cigarette packages – the latest step in a court order they’ve been fighting for 17 years. Altria, its Philip Morris USA subsidiary and R.J. Reynolds have until Nov. 21, 2018 to publish “corrective statements” on five topics about which they had been found to deliberately deceive the public:

Workers’ compensation costs may not reflect the true cost of work-related illness and injury, according to two new studies that crunched the numbers on how work-related injuries affect companies’ health care costs – even when workers comp is available.

The opioid epidemic that is causing devastation in many communities in the U.S. may be being worsened by financial payments made by pharmaceutical companies to advocacy organizations that help people cope with chronic pain, according to a new report released by Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Fueling an Epidemic: Exposing the Financial Ties Between Opioid Manufacturers and Third Party Advocacy Groups exposes the cozy financial relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and groups that assist pain sufferers.

Two-thirds of U.S. adults (66 percent) cite the cost of health insurance as a stressor for themselves, their loved ones or in general, when asked about specific health issues that cause them stress. This stress about the cost of health insurance seems to affect Americans at all income levels.

Only 3.3 percent of all visits to emergency departments are classified as “avoidable,” according to a study published today in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care (“Avoidable emergency department visits: a starting point”).

A new study,by the American Heart Association (AHA), projects that if left unchecked, cardiovascular disease (CVD) will place a crushing burden on the nation’s financial and health care systems affecting 131.2 million Americans -- 45 percent of the total U.S. population – and costing $1.1 trillion.

Employees who participate in a workplace weight management program—even those without significant weight loss—have reduced health care costs and improved quality of life (QOL), reports a study in the November Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare Part D.