GLP-1 medications are linked to a 17.3% drop in long-term sickness leave over four years, according to a working paper published in July by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Researchers compared 7,011 patients who started Ozempic during the drug’s first 17 months of availability to a matched group of 7,011 patients who initiated treatment four years later. Here are four things to know:
- Long-term sickness leave, defined as absences lasting more than 30 days, fell 0.95 percentage points among GLP-1 initiators, a 17.3% decline relative to the pre-treatment average of 5.5%. The effect grew over time, from about 0.8 percentage points in the first two years after initiation to 1.1 percentage points in years three and four.
- Researchers tied the decline to improvements in cardiometabolic health, pointing to reductions in emergency department visits and cardiovascular drug use among treated patients over the same period.
- The reduced sick leave translated into combined employer and public fiscal savings of about $866 per employed patient per year, equal to 1.3% to 1.5% of annual labor income.
- Despite the sick-leave findings, the study found no statistically significant effects on employment, labor force participation or total income over the four-year period.
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