[Convalescence, sick leave and health economics]

National health policies have been proposed to reduce long-term absenteeism in order to increase labour supply. Convalescence interventions have been developed and optimised and shown to reduce long-term absenteeism and as such they form an integral part of the national health policy. We describe absenteeism and convalescence within an economic perspective. In Denmark, the economic costs of absenteeism amounted to more than 37 billion Danish kroner in 2006, including sick leave benefits and non-productive wage expenditure. Optimising convalescence interventions, if efficacious, is highly cost-effective.