The cost of illness
The Health Productivity Gap (HPG)
The HPG aims to answer two key questions:
How much productive capacity does Canada forgo when illness prevents full participation in the workforce? How much of that capacity could be recovered by those workers?
Using an established cost-of-illness (COI) framework, we capture the lost economic output through three lenses. We estimate that in 2025 alone Canada sacrificed more than $100 billion in economic output across these areas:14
Caregiving costs
Providing unpaid care is associated with $48.5 billion in lost labour income.
Morbidity costs
Living with a health condition is associated with $55.1 billion in lost economic value from time away from work.
Mortality costs
Premature death due to a health condition is associated with $1.1 billion in lost output during a “friction period” (the time required to replace and train workers).
Not all this lost economic output can be recovered.
Some sickness, waiting, and caregiving is unavoidable. But through targeted intervention aimed at reducing mortality, morbidity, and caregiving costs, much of this productivity and income loss can be regained, strengthening Canada’s overall productive capacity.
$105 billion
Approximately a quarter of economic loss due to caregiving, illness, and premature death is recoverable
Not all this lost economic output can be recovered.
Some sickness, waiting, and caregiving is unavoidable. But through targeted intervention aimed at reducing mortality, morbidity, and caregiving costs, much of this productivity and income loss can be regained, strengthening Canada’s overall productive capacity.
Economic gains through targeted interventions
Caregiving
The opportunity: Reducing the caregiving burden on families and informal carers by 25% could lead to economic gains of over $12 billion.15
Why it’s achievable: A Harvard Business School study looked at employers offering a Care Concierge Benefit, which helped employees find services, coordinate care, and navigate the system. Absenteeism fell by up to 50%, and 30% of employees said caregiving support prevented them from taking time off or leaving their job. Employers realized up to 72% ROI from caregiver support programs.16 Notably, businesses have a direct stake in the health of their workforce, since healthier employees mean lower absenteeism, stronger retention, and sustained productivity.
$12 billion
potential economic gains from reducing the caregiving burden
Morbidity and mortality
The opportunity: Easing the morbidity burden that keeps people out of work or working below capacity by 25% could generate more than $13 billion of GDP gains.17 Eliminating avoidable mortality (which OECD and Statistics Canada estimate as 25% of deaths in the working-age population) could add another $250 million in GDP gains.18
Why it’s achievable: The CMAJ Open study estimates that about 40% of disability-adjusted life years (total health burden) and 24% of years lived with disability (morbidity burden) in Canada stem from modifiable risk factors, including diet, high BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol.19 This suggests that improvements of over 25% are feasible by targeting preventable risk factors.20
$13.25 billion
potential GDP gains from reducing illness-related barriers to work and premature deaths
