Age and sex-specific characteristics of post-pandemic sickness absenteeism in the Russian Federation

Introduction. Sickness absenteeism is one of the most important indicators of workers’ health. Achievement of the national goal of reducing work time and productivity losses due to health-related issues in employees determines a high importance of studying morbidity of the working-age population in the post-pandemic area.The purpose of the study was to establish age and sex-specific characteristics of post-pandemic sickness absence from work in the Russian Federation.Materials and methods. Based on data reported using the statistical form 16-VN, we calculated sickness absence rates for the pre-pandemic time span of 2015–2019 and the year 2023 by sex and 5-year age cohorts. We also established growth rates in 2023 compared to the pre-COVID period. To assess the statistical significance of differences, confidence intervals (CI) were constructed for the mean rate for 2015–2019.Results. We observed significant differences in sickness absence rates between the years 2015–2019 and 2023 in all disease categories. In some cases, we noted a statistical decrease in the rate of sickness absence due to certain reasons, which may indicate an unrealized risk to health of the working population in the form of such an effect as sickness absenteeism. In the age groups of 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 years, both women and men showed the highest number of all-cause episodes of sickness absence from work and the highest growth rates for almost all ICD categories.Research limitations. The study is limited to data for the years 2015–2019 and 2023.Conclusions. Health authorities are advised to pay special attention to young workers when conducting medical examinations and take into account the local specifics of sickness absenteeism when implementing regional and municipal public health promotion programs. Employers are also recommended to consider sickness absenteeism in certain categories of workers when developing and implementing corporate workplace wellness programs.Compliance with ethical standards. Formal approval of an ethics committee is not required for this study.Contribution of the authors: Shastin A.S. — study conception and design, data collection, draft manuscript preparation; Panov V.G. — statistical data analysis, editing. Co-authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.Funding. The study had no sponsorship.Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.Received: August 26, 2025 / Accepted: December 17, 2025 / Published: March 4, 2026