![](media/image1.png){width="1.1597222222222223in"
height="1.304861111111111in"}**IMPORTANCE OF THE HEALTHY FAMILIES ACT**

**TO THE HEALTH OF AMERICAN CHILDREN**

**Institute for Health and Social Policy**

**Issue Brief II, 2007**

Jody Heymann, Alison Earle & Kate Penrose

*Healthy Families Act*

-   Nearly half of private sector workers have no paid sick days at all.
    An even larger percentage lack the ability to take days off to care
    for sick family members.

-   While many families cannot reliably count on paid sick days, working
    poor families are at the highest risk. Seventy-six percent of
    low-income working parents do not consistently have paid sick days.

-   The Healthy Families Act would ensure working Americans receive at
    least 7 paid sick days.

*Sick Days' Impact on the Health of Children*

-   Parental availability is vital for ensuring children's physical
    health. Children sent to day care sick with contagious diseases
    exacerbate the higher rate of observed infections in day care
    centers, including respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.
    Children left home alone are unable to see physicians for diagnoses,
    needed medications, or emergency help if their conditions worsen.

-   Parental care is important for children even when substitute sick
    child care is available. Studies of hospitalized children have shown
    that sick children have shorter recovery periods, better vital
    signs, and fewer symptoms when their parents share in their care.
    The presence of parents has also been found to shorten children's
    hospital stays by 31%.

-   Workplace policies are essential to the ability of working parents
    to meet the health needs of their children. Parents who have paid
    sick days are more than five times as likely to be able to care for
    their children themselves when they get sick as parents who do not
    have paid sick days.

*Impact on the Ability of Americans to Get Jobs, Keep Jobs, and Earn a
Decent Living*

-   Without paid sick days, working families are placed at risk
    economically, experiencing wage and job loss when they take time off
    to provide care for family members.

-   The ability of working poor mothers to keep a job is dramatically
    affected by the health of the mother and the health of her child.
    Having a health problem led to a 53% increase in job loss among
    low-wage mothers and having a child with health problems led to a
    36% increase.

*Importance to Adults as Well as to Children*

-   Those who will benefit from paid sick days bridge children, adults,
    older and disabled Americans.

-   The proportion of adults having to meet the needs of elderly and
    disabled adult family members while working is growing and will
    continue to do so as the American population ages.

-   When adults receive support from family members when sick, they have
    substantially better health outcomes from conditions such as heart
    attacks and strokes, and elderly individuals live longer.

-   The ability of workers to address their own health needs is equally
    critical. Taking the necessary time to rest and recuperate when sick
    encourages a faster recovery and may prevent minor health conditions
    from progressing into more serious illnesses that require longer
    absences from work and more costly medical treatment. If working
    adults are able to stay home when they are sick, they are also less
    likely to spread their illness to those they work with.

-   In a study of nurses, having sick days made all the difference in
    their ability to keep their jobs after developing heart disease or
    having a heart attack. Those with paid sick days were 2.6 times more
    likely to return to work after a heart attack or angina.

*Impact on Businesses*

-   Offering paid sick days has positive benefits for employers,
    including limiting the spread of infectious diseases in the
    workplace by letting employees stay home when sick.

-   At the same time, workplaces with paid sick days experience lower
    job turnover rates, leading to lower recruitment and training costs
    and a higher level of productivity and decreased unnecessary
    absenteeism.

*Sick Days are Feasible while Competing in a Global Economy*

-   One hundred and forty-five countries guarantee paid sick days. In at
    least 100 countries, paid sick days begin with the first day of
    illness.

-   By global standards, the seven days proposed in the Healthy Families
    Act is quite modest. One hundred and two countries guarantee 1 month
    or more of paid sick leave.

-   The World Economic Forum, which brings together the top business
    leaders from around the world, has ranked the most competitive
    national economies. All of the 20 most competitive countries, with
    the exception of the United States, guarantee paid sick days, and 18
    of them provide 31 or more days of paid sick leave.

-   Globally, those countries which are most economically competitive
    are consistently more likely to guarantee paid sick days and leave
    for employees' own health, for the care of children's health, and to
    meet the health needs of other adult family members. It makes sense.
    If you guarantee paid sick days, you have healthier workers and a
    healthier next generation -- both essential to competition.

![](media/image3.png){width="1.9201388888888888in"
height="0.5194444444444445in"}For more information, please contact
Stephanie Coen:

\(514\) 398-1534

<stephanie.coen@mcgill.ca>