Maine Paid Sick Days

Copyright

2009

Published Date

10/31/2009

Published By

Health Impact Project

This health impact assessment (HIA) addressed a Maine-specific version of the federal Healthy Families Act, a bill that would have entitled an employee to accrue paid sick time at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to nine days per year. The pathways and health issues explored included: 1) the spread of communicable diseases, such as influenza and stomach flu through workers at restaurants, schools and nursing homes; 2) the income and stress-related impacts of loss of salary and employer retaliation for missing work; and 3) the potential effects on emergency room use and delayed medical care.

The HIA found that over 100,000 ER visits and 15,000 hospitalizations were preventable, based on hospital inpatient data from the Maine Health Data Organization. Through focus groups, the HIA found that workers are concerned regarding access to paid sick days and access to healthcare, delayed healthcare, and hospitalization; ability to care for dependents; infecting co-workers and customers; and overall feeling of not having basic rights as workers and feeling lack of trust from employers.

The HIA received press coverage in Maine and helped shift the policy debate to include health outcomes.

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This Health Impact Assessment Report first appeared in The Cross-Sector Toolkit for Health. The Cross-Sector Toolkit for Health was originally developed by the Health Impact Project, formerly a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The creation of this resource was supported by a grant from the Health Impact Project. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts, or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.