Neo has recently published a paper that investigated the prevalence of chronic pain in the UK with shopping data and its impact on workplace attendance.
In Study 1, we used loyalty card data of more than 20 million customers from the biggest pharmacy chain in the UK and calculated the prevalence of pain in each region. We found geographical level evidence that pain prevalence is associated with shorter working hours and more individuals working part-time.
In Study 2, we asked over 800 individuals to actively donate their loyalty chain data from the biggest supermarket chain in the UK with us. Combined with a survey, we showed individual-level evidence that those who purchase more painkillers experience more pain, are less likely to work full-time, and also more likely to be restricted in their workplace attendance.
This work shows a novel approach to measure prevalence of pain and illustrates the detrimental effects of pain on work-related outcomes, offering key insights into how health patterns can be extracted from shopping data.