Making Mental Health Matter

Why Suicide and Mental Health Matter in the Workplace

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  1. The impact of suicide on a corporate family consisting of 100,000 employees, with an average of four blood relatives per employee, includes:
    1. The loss of a member to suicide every seven days.
    2. Three suicide attempts every day since there are about 25 nonfatal suicide attempts for every reported suicide. Some of these attempts result in a significant medical injury, which directly impacts health care costs, particularly for self-insured companies.1
  2. Twenty percent of the American workforce experiences some form of mental disorder, and depression and substance abuse are among the most common problems2
  3. The Surgeon General’s National Strategy for Suicide Prevention specifically targets employers as critical stakeholders in the prevention of suicide, “It is in the interests of employers to prevent suicide and suicidal behaviors…A suicide in the family of an employee may result in such grief that the employee becomes incapacitated.”3
  4. One in 14 employees suffers from depression at any one time, resulting in more than 200 million lost workdays each year and a cost of $44 billion annually in absenteeism, lost productivity and direct treatment costs.4
  5. Men in the middle years of life (24-50) bear the largest public health burden due to suicide—more than for diabetes or stroke5

Next Page: The Double Bottom Line Impact

1Paul Quinett (QPR Institute) and Value Options retrieved from http://www.valueoptions.com/suicide_prev/html%20pages/About.htm
1Cullen, L. (2007). One in five American workers suffer mental illness. Retrieved on May 17, 2007 from http://time-blog.com/work_in_progress/2007/01/one_in_five_american_workers_s.html
1U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001). National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action. Rockville, MD: Public Health Service
1The National Mental Health Assocation
1Kerry Knox, PhD, Eric Cane, MD. "Establishing Priorities for Reducing Suicide and its Antecedents in the United States." University of Rochester Medical Center, University of Rochester Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide. Retrieved from http://www.valueoptions.com/suicide_prev/html%20pages/About.htm.