Chronic health disorders accounted for 30 per cent of decisions by a sample of middle-aged and elderly people in India to stop or curtail paid work, the country’s first-ever population-based study to estimate how chronic diseases impact productivity has found.

The study by researchers at the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, found that health reasons accounted for 7 per cent of 3,213 people who stopped work for a year or longer and 23 per cent of 6,300 people who limited their work.

Their analysis has also shown that the proportion of people between 45 and 64 years who had stopped or curtailed their work was the highest (21 per cent) among victims of stroke, followed by neurological or psychiatric disorders (18 per cent), and chronic heart disease (13 per cent).

While multiple earlier studies have shown how health disorders can disrupt finances and lower the living standards of households, there has been a lack of adequate data on how chronic disorders can impact work productivity.

“We’ve now quantified for the first time at a nationwide level the proportion of middle-aged or elderly people who have to stop work for health reasons,” said Sanjay Mohanty, professor of population health at the IIPS who led the study.

Mohanty said the results underline the need for enhanced awareness about chronic health disorders, stronger prevention initiatives and greater investments at the primary healthcare level to enable early diagnosis and treatment and minimise the risk of their long-term complications.

Mohanty and his colleagues analysed data from the first set of 72,000 people from over 42,000 households across the country participating in the so-called Longitudinal Ageing Study in India that started in 2017-18 and is designed to track the health outcomes of ageing people over several years.

They found that among a sample of people aged between 45 and 60 years who had stopped work for a year or longer, 58 per cent had done so because of health issues followed by child care (24 per cent) and other family issues (8 per cent).

“This shows how significant health issues are in decisions to stop work,” Mohanty said.

Their findings, published in the journal BMC Public Health, have also shown how education levels and earnings influence decisions to curtail work.

Their findings, published in the journal BMC Public Health, have also shown how education levels and earnings influence decisions to curtail work.