The Ensuring Solutions Alcohol Cost Calculator for Business is a free, online tool that business leaders, researchers, and consumers can use to track the costly effects of alcohol on U.S. businesses. The Calculator for Business, originally developed in 2003, has been updated with new data to provide a current analysis of the effects of untreated alcohol abuse and dependence on the workplace and employer-funded health care spending. Using data from the 2004 and 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the calculator estimates the cost of alcohol problems to individual businesses based on characteristics specified by calculator users.

Available at http://www.alcoholcostcalculator.org, the Calculator for Business is one of four calculators developed by Ensuring Solutions. Users can select a specific U.S. industry, input the number of employees within a company, and pick the state or metropolitan area in which the company operates. Calculator users can also simply review U.S. industry averages for national results instead of specifying company-specific criteria.

The Calculator for Business produces customized reports that estimate the number of employees with drinking problems and the impact those problems have on productivity and health care costs. Below is a sample of the results that would be generated for a national hotel chain that is part of the Arts/Entertainment/Recreation/Accommodation/Food Service industry sector:

Number of employees	5,000
Likely number of problem drinkers in your workforce	458
Likely number of employees’ family members who are problem drinkers	621
Likely number of excess work days lost to sickness, injury and absence because of problem drinking	159 Days Per Month
Cost of excess lost days per year	$266,052
Likely alcohol-related health care costs	$1,962,068
Excess emergency room visits	121
Excess days in the hospital	56
Emergency department and hospital costs	$441,383

“Excessive alcohol use has a tremendous impact on workplace productivity and health,” said Eric Goplerud, PhD, Director of Ensuring Solutions. "This impact remains hidden—largely because alcohol-related problems are not addressed in many health care and employee assistance programs. The alcohol cost calculator provides a clear demonstration of the costs of untreated alcohol problems and the potential return on an investment in workplace screening and brief intervention."

More information about the calculator and what employers can do to curtail the negative effects of alcohol problems in the workplace is available on the Alcohol Cost Calculator Web site. Also on this site are links to three additional calculators developed by Ensuring Solutions to provide estimates of the cost of alcohol problems for health plans, the return on investment for treatment, and the scope and impact of underage drinking.