One Forth of Americans Still Work While Sick

Well over a fourth of American workers will chose to show up to their job sick, according to a new survey on public health standards released this week.

The survey was conducted by NSF International, a globally recognized developer of public health standards and certification programs that help ensure and improve human health. The organization telephoned approximately 1000 working adults in the U.S. last month, asking about their workplace health habits.

What they found was that over 26 percent of the respondents reported frequently still going into work even when sick. According to the survey results, the reasons for this varied, but 42 percent of those who go into work sick said they are afraid they will be too behind in their workload if they take a sick day. Another 37 percent of the same group said they simply couldn't afford to miss work if they are not getting paid.

Interestingly, only thirteen percent of those surveyed believed their co-workers would come in to work sick simply because they don't trust their colleagues to do their job. Two thirds of the survey participants said they thought their co-workers who came in sick were hard workers. Still 57 percent of them also said they would advise their co-workers to go home if they looked too ill.

Another interesting point the NSF survey discovered was that men are twice as likely as women to always go to work throughout even the worst parts of their illness. This stubborn work ethic isn't exactly a good thing through, as the peak of many illnesses is also the most likely time it will be able to spread to other people.

The NSF International survey report concluded with recommendations from the organization for workers who are not likely to take a sick day. Eating healthy and taking vitamins, they wrote, can help prevent a significant number of basic illnesses. Disinfecting the workplace can also help prevent the spread of germs when a co-worker almost inevitably comes in with the sniffles.

The "Workplace Flu Survey" was conducted by NSF International mid-January.