Economic Impacts of Parks, Rivers, Trails and Greenways

Program, Latino Health Initiative, and Recreation Department/Hearts N' ParksWellness Program, as well as the Maryland National Capital Park and PlanningCommission. The Heart Smart Trail initiative will improve trail infrastructure inorder to provide safer routes to walkers and joggers, and Kaiser Permante’ssponsorship provided 1/10 mile markers along a one-mile trail forwalkers/joggers to keep track of their distance while exercising off the mainstreets. The initiative also offers a Hearts Smart Trail 4-fold brochure thatincludes walking tips, a map of the trail and a walking log to keep track of thewalks. Moving forward, Montgomery County Department of Recreation/HeartsN' Parks Program and Maryland National Capital Park and PlanningCommission are partnering to add health education classes that will also focuson the use of the trail and to further the mile marker placement to otherMontgomery County trails (Atkinson, 2004).3.6.5 Impact on EmployersBusinesses and other employers are increasingly bearing the burden of treating the resultsof physical inactivity. Primary costs include lost productivity and paid sick leave associatedwith obesity and disease treatment, as well as the increased costs of health, life anddisability insurance. The private sector pays the highest proportion of total health care costsattributable to being overweight or obese in the U.S. (about 36%) and while employeesthemselves may suffer from increased premiums, the majority of the costs are paid byemployers through private employer-sponsored group health insurance, for example(Finkelstein, 2003). The indirect impact on employers includes less obvious costs such aslow productivity, reduced employee morale and high turnover. Absenteeism, for example,leads to costs for overtime, employing part-time replacements, time spent by supervisorsdealing with the issue, and expenditures for absence control programs.Studies of overweight and obese employees have shown that obese employeestake more sick leave than non-obese employees and are twice as likely to havehigh-level absenteeism (seven or more health-related absences during the last sixmonths) and one-and-a-half times more likely to have moderate absenteeism(three to six absences due to illness during the past six months). (Tucker, 1998)In 1994, the costs that U.S. businesses bore for obesity-related health problemsreached $13 billion, broken down into:o health insurance expenditures: $8 billiono sick leave: $2.4 billiono life insurance: $1.8 billiono disability insurance: $1 billion (Thompson, 1998)UnumProvident, the U.S.’s largest disability insurer, reports that obesity-relateddisability claims have grown tenfold in the past decade, reaching an average of$8,720 per employee each year. People who are obese cost employers, onaverage, about $6,000 to $7,000 a year more in terms of lost productivity andpresenteeism” (wherein employees may be physically present but mentallyabsent). (Shutan, 2004)Research has shown that people with diabetes lost 8.3 days per year from work,102