India's workforce health crisis: Chronic diseases strike younger as heart risks soar, study finds

Corporate India employees' health is at high risk - 63% have high or elevated blood pressure, 38% have high cholesterol, 17% are obese, 11% are pre-diabetic, and 20% are troubled by mental health issues and anxiety.

These findings are by Plum, one of India's leading employee health benefits platforms, which analysed data from more than 100,000 telehealth consultations, representing 6% of its user base, alongside 25,000 insurance claims, 1,998 participants in health camps, and 512 survey responses.

The 'Employee Health Report 2025' says chronic illnesses are striking a decade earlier than in developed nations, often by age 40 or sooner. The median age for cardiology consults is just 33, underscoring a troubling trend of early-onset chronic illnesses among India’s working population. The data reveals a consistent pattern across the onset of major health conditions - heart disease at the age of 32, cancer (33), diabetes (34), chronic kidney disease (35) and other cerebrovascular diseases (strokes, ischemia) at the age of 36.

This early onset not only threatens individual well-being but also puts long-term pressure on workforce productivity, healthcare costs, and India’s economic potential. Chronic disease costs companies up to 30 days of productivity loss and disengagement per employee every year. About 40% of employees take at least one sick day each month for mental health reasons, and 1 in 5 are considering quitting due to burnout.

The study also says that despite the growing burden of disease, only 20% of companies offer regular health check-ups, and even when available, just 38% of employees use them. It says 23% of women's telehealth consults were related to reproductive health, 32% to hormonal health, and 18% to menstrual issues. 42% of women work through period pain without accommodations and 70% plus of women say current health benefits do not meet their real needs.

Only 34% of companies offer benefits aligned with what employees truly value and 1 in 3 employees say they don’t even have the time to care for their health. For every ₹100 invested in health, companies generate ₹296 in healthcare savings for employees. "We need to urge companies to think of healthcare beyond the transactional nature of insurance," says Abhishek Poddar, Co-founder of Plum.