Employee Assistance Program Counseling in the U.S. Manufacturing Industry: Clinical and Work Outcome Risks and Results for 17,389 Cases at CuraLinc Healthcare

Abstract

This applied study explored the role of behavioral health issues among workers in the manufacturing industry in the United States. It features highlights of a previous much larger study in 2024 of eight different industries. The 29.3 million employees in the manufacturing and related heavy labor industries (construction, wholesale trade, maintenance/repair, and energy utilities) accounted for about 1 in every 5 workers in the total U.S. workforce in year 2024. Recent data on number of worker, number of employers, worker age, gender, private/public sector, union representation, compensation, and safety from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for 7 other industry categories was presented to provide context for this one industry. The study featured EAP data collected over a 7-year period from employee users of individual counseling or coaching from a single national EAP business in the United States (CuraLinc Healthcare). This full sample included 85,432 clients who worked at 2,679 employers. The EAP subsample for the manufacturing industry group included 17,389 employee clients who worked at 629 employers. Longitudinal data at 30-days post use was obtained from 9,063 cases in the full sample of which 2,342 were from the manufacturing industry. The manufacturing industry client sample was 56% men, average age of 40 years, 95% used the EAP for counseling (5% coaching), 95% were voluntary self-referrals (5% formally referred by manager at work), 64% used in-person office delivery (36% online video) and the typical treatment episode lasted about 7 weeks (48 days). Employees in the manufacturing industry used the EAP to address issues of mental health (43%), stress and personal life issues (24%), marriage and family issues (20%), work-related issues (5%) and substance use problems (8%). When starting to use the EAP many cases in manufacturing reported having clinical level symptoms on standardized measures for anxiety disorder (41% at- risk), depression disorder (29% at-risk), alcohol misuse disorder (15% at-risk) and low work productivity (50% at problem level). Among those cases initially at clinical risk status on outcomes in the total sample, over three-fourths recovered after use to no longer be at risk or to have a work productivity problem. Lost hours of work productivity changed from 64 hours lost per month per at-risk case to 23 hours. The hours of restored work productivity was estimated to be a $1,905 value per month per case who initially had this problem. Most of these same EAP risk rates and post-use outcome improvement results were also found at similar levels for employees in other industries.