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NEW YORK, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Chronic health conditions are having a serious, negative impact on the welfare of the country's workers and their output, a new Harvard poll shows. More than half of employees suffer from chronic conditions, and three-fourths of them need to deal with their illnesses on the job, according to the poll conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and the de Beaumont Foundation in Bethesda, Md., and released Tuesday.
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Even so, a majority -- 60% -- have not formally revealed their disorder to the employer, the poll found.
"We know that chronic illnesses are one of the top health problems facing employers today, yet the day-to-day impacts on employees and their work often remain hidden," Gillian SteelFisher, the poll's director, told UPI.
The researchers undertook the nationally representative poll of working U.S. adults "to understand the bigger picture of employees' challenges and experiences with managing their chronic conditions and working," said SteelFisher, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program and principal research scientist at Harvard's public health school.
"We hope these results highlight new opportunities for employers to support and strengthen their workforce," she said.
The poll's findings also highlight the challenges that many federal employees and others may encounter under return-to-work policies, the researchers said.
The poll uncovered that more than half of U.S. employees report living with physical chronic health conditions, such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and asthma.
Meanwhile, more than one-third of U.S. employees with chronic conditions, 36%, note forgoing medical appointments or postponing care to avoid interrupting work in the past year.
Employers or managers can take several measures to better serve their workers, the researchers noted.
"Many workers with chronic conditions say they need more flexibility, breaks, time off to see their doctors and paid leave to adequately manage their conditions," said SteelFisher, who has a doctorate in health policy.
She added that "you shouldn't have to choose between your job or your medical care, yet that is the sad reality millions of U.S. workers are facing today."
The poll found "wide and very concerning gaps between the everyday realities that most workers with chronic conditions face, and the limited amount of flexibility and benefits that many employers have provided to meet their needs," SteelFisher said.
"If more employers realize this gap exists, there is so much they can do to better support their employees' health both now and in the long run," she said.
The researchers acknowledged they were surprised by how often employees reported missing out on opportunities or receiving negative feedback due to ongoing health conditions.
"Though having these conditions is so common in America, the huge stigma experienced by large fractions of workers shows that there is a need to shape workplaces that don't punish workers for having chronic illnesses.," SteelFisher said. "This is good for the health of the employees and the businesses that function best with a healthy workforce."
Other experts noted the poll's value in shedding light on the toll that chronic health conditions take on America's workers.
"Chronic health conditions have become an important part of our longer lives," said Dr. Moïse Desvarieux, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.
"The impact gets even bigger as we grow older, but it affects us all," Desvarieux said, while adding that "people often do not only have one, but two or three chronic conditions," which increases the risk of death and compounds the complexity of juggling multiple medications and appointments with different specialists.
"How do we prevent people from having the first, and then the second or third chronic condition?" he said. "It is in the interest of employees and the employer to have healthy workers and workforce, so leaving people time for prevention [and] facilitating that prevention and care when needed is a win-win."
Dr. Erika Hutz, a geriatrician at Endeavor Health in the Chicago area, said there is "ongoing tension between personal health needs and workplace demands."
Supportive employment environments and policies that recognize and accommodate chronic health conditions are becoming more vital as people "navigate return-to-work strategies and prioritize public health," Hutz said.
"This is a call for national employer action," said Lili Tenney, director of programs in the Centers for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora.
"The days of a healthy business being just a perk are over," Tenney said. "Today, investing in healthy business is a necessity for a thriving workforce."
