Friday, April 12, 2013

Ravages of substance abuse: economic costs and implications

Substance abuse as a Societal Issue not just has an Adverse Impact on Individuals and Stakeholders, but also Impacts Organisational Performance in ways Unimaginable. There has been no formal Approach to Addressing this ill, but recent initiatives might Succeed in Working out a model that appeals to The Business fraternity as well.

Do you have any idea how much economic and social damage is caused by substance abuse? And are you aware of how much could be done to address the problems if only the business opportunities inherent in finding solutions were better developed and more widely known?

The social and economic costs
Think about the distribution pertaining to the severity of substance abuse in India. It ranges from low to high, with a large proportion of the population in the category of those with little or no use, the lowest level of severity, and with no need for any sort of special treatment. In the US, this category includes roughly two thirds of the population. At the high end are alcoholics and addicts whose problems have been diagnosed and are under going treatment. This is a very small proportion of the population, less than 1% in the US. In between these two extremes, however, are two other groups – those who would be diagnosed clinically as being dependent but who are not receiving treatment and many more whose alcohol and other substance use – though not addictive — is significantly harming their ability to function soundly. You would be surprised at how much of the population falls into these two categories. In the US, for example, some 24 million people are dependent but are not receiving treatment, and another 60-70 million people are not clinically dependent but fall into the category of “harmful use”, i.e. their use of substances has harmful effects not only on themselves but also on those around them. While, we don’t have reliable information for India, we suspect that the proportions are not too dissimilar, with somewhere around one-third of the population needing or standing to benefit from treatment but not receiving it.

Now stop and think for a moment about how substance abuse affects people’s performance in the workplace. Not only are employees less productive than they might otherwise be, but the probability that they will have accidents in the workplace increases and their impact on their fellow employees reduces overall productivity. And these are the people whose level of substance abuse is moderate; despite their involvement with alcohol or opiates, they are able to hold down a job notwithstanding their absenteeism and diminished productivity. They fall into that category described above called “harmful use”. What if there were interventions that employers could use to help them reduce their involvement with substances? How big would the economic payoffs to the companies be? Were they to receive treatment, we can hypothesise that not only would they be more productive in the workplace, they might be more effective in other roles they play in their families and communities. And finally, what about those people who would be defined clinically as dependent and who need treatment but are not currently getting any? What are the costs, economic and otherwise, to Indian society? Estimates of the economic costs alone run into tens of billions of dollars or more.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
 
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,