Why is health, work and wellbeing important?

There is growing evidence that health, work and wellbeing are closely and powerfully linked and need to be addressed together.

We’ve long known that work is the best route out of poverty. But the 2006 report, "Is work good for your health and well-being?" crucially found that work is also usually good for people’s health. People in work are generally healthier, while being in work can help people with a health condition to get better and returning to work from unemployment improves health. These positive effects apply to all age groups.

While some work can present a risk to health – and these risks need to be carefully managed – far more people gain health benefits from work than are negatively affected by it.

• People who are long-term unemployed or who have never worked are between two and three times more likely to have poor health than those in work.
• People are twice as likely to become psychologically distressed after going from work to unemployment.

Today there are still too many people who are unable to work due to ill health: 2.6 million people are currently claiming incapacity benefits – with 600,000 coming on to the benefit each year – while 1.4 million people aged 50-59 have already retired due to ill-health.

And it’s not just health which is an issue. The longer someone is out of work because of ill-health, the lower their chance of getting back into work.

• If you've been off sick for six months, you have an 80% chance of being off for five years.
• 90% of people beginning a claim for incapacity benefits expect to return to work, but once someone has been claiming for two years or more, they are more likely to retire or die than return to work.

With 1 million people reporting sick each week, businesses are suffering too. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has estimated that 175 million working days were lost last year to sickness absence, at a cost to the economy of £13 billion.

But the good news is that most common health problems can be accommodated at work and these account for two-thirds of longer-term sickness absence, incapacity for work and ill-health retirement. So this is a problem that can be tackled.

We are looking to add to our pool of evidence on these issues. Share your story.