week 5 discussion

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De Anza College *

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Health Science

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Jan 9, 2024

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1. If employers can demonstrate objective correlations between tobacco habits, health markers (such as mortality levels, cancer rates, etc.), and insurance costs, should they be permitted to mandate tobacco-free workplaces (that is to say, workplaces that prohibit employees from using tobacco products at all... even on breaks or outside of work), and to require employees to undergo pre-hire tobacco screenings and random periodic testing as a condition of employment? What are the legal concerns here? If employers can demonstrate objective correlations between other health markers (such as cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, etc.) and insurance costs, should they be permitted to create policies that require new employees to undergo physical assessments and meet certain standards as a condition of employment. Could this be done short of requiring a "medical examination"? Hello class, According to Patel, “smoking causes an estimated 480 000 deaths annually in the United States and 5.7 million deaths globally”. Smoking can also affect productivity in the workplace and is often associated with higher healthcare costs. In my opinion, if employers can demonstrate objective correlations between tobacco habits, health markers and insurance costs, they should be permitted to mandate tobacco-free workplace even on breaks or outside of works. According to a recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO), smoking costs the global economy more than $1 trillion in healthcare costs each year and reduces worker productivity. Furthermore, the number of tobacco-related deaths is projected to increase from 6 million to 8 million per year by 2030. Federal, state, and local governments do not require private employers to conduct employee drug tests, but they do establish drug testing programs, regulations and policies for their own civil service jobs. So, it depends on each private employer. However, most employers do pre-hire tobacco screenings and random periodic testing as a condition of employment, for example in military. Besides, random testing the current and potential employees can help prevent and detect workplace drug abuse. It would reduce employee healthcare costs, improve in employee morale, productivity, and performance, decrease absenteeism, accidents, downtime, turnover, and theft, and provide a safe workplace for employees. According to reading from this week, if an applicant or existing employee tests positive for a substance that is illegal, this is almost always a sufficient reason for the employer to deny or terminate employment. However, if an individual tests positive in a substance screening and this individual does have a prescription, then this raises more questions for further situations. According to Phan HM from the article “Drug Testing in the Workplace”, Congress passed the Drug-Free Workplace Act in April 1988, which resulted in the Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs. The intent was to establish a substance-free work environment for all federal workers by requiring that all federal employees pass a urine drug test before employment. These guidelines specifically, and exclusively, focus on testing urine specimens for metabolites of marijuana, cocaine, phencyclidine, opiates. In the United States, there is no federal law that would prohibit employers from not hiring smokers or would permit this in some cases. A physical assessment is a common step in the onboarding process for many companies, particularly if they want to ensure the new employee is physically capable of performing the job-related

responsibilities. Under the American with Disabilities Act, employers are not allowed to discriminate against workers based on health status. They can only ask employees for details about their health and conduct medical exams as part of a voluntary wellness program. To protect job applicants against discrimination, the ADA prohibits requiring a medical exam prior to extending a job offer. However, employers are allowed to ask prospective employees to take a medical exam after making a conditional job offer. So, they can require potential new hires to undergo a physical examination as long as they have the same requirement for all other candidates in the same job category. According to section seven and dight of the Employment Equity Act, 55 of 1998, employers are prohibited form performing medical testing or any other similar assessment on employees. Employees are often required to pass medical test before they are considered for a certain vacancy. Such tests will only be lawful when legislation requires or permits the test or when the employer can justify the reason for the test. References: Employment equity act 55 of 1998 people with Disabilities - Gestalt Consult . (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.gestaltconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Employment-Equity-Act- People-with-Disabilities.pdf Patel, R. R., & Schmidt, H. (2017, December 1). Should employers be permitted not to hire smokers? A review of us legal provisions . International journal of health policy and management. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5726320/ Phan, H. M., Yoshizuka, K., Murry, D. J., & Perry, P. J. (2012). Drug testing in the workplace. Pharmacotherapy , 32 (7), 649–656. https://doi-org.ezproxy1.apus.edu/10.1002/j.1875-9114.2011.01089.x World Health Organization. (n.d.). Tobacco . World Health Organization. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco Hello Brott, Thank you for sharing your post. It is a great idea that the employers should truly care about the long-term health of their employees by including many different wellnesses stuff in their benefits. People are working to earn money and support their families, so it should be a great idea to offer monetary benefits if they have positive exams and health screenings annually. According to a recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO), smoking costs the global economy more than $1 trillion in healthcare costs each year and reduces worker productivity. Furthermore, the number of tobacco-related deaths is projected to increase from 6 million to 8 million per year by 2030. Therefore, like you said, there are many people who have begun to switch from traditional forms of tobacco to e-cigarettes and vapes to reduce their smoking frequency. I do agree with you that the employers should not be able to create policies that require new employees to undergo physical assessments of employment. They can only ask

employees for details about their health and conduct medical exams as part of a voluntary wellness programs.

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week 5 discussion

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