Employee Assistance Program Counseling in the U.S. Government and Municipality Industry: Clinical and Work Outcome Risks and Results for 6,369 Cases at CuraLinc Healthcare

This applied study explored the role of behavioral health issues among workers in the government and municipality industry in the United States. It presents highlights for this industry group from a larger study in 2024 of eight different industries. 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 seven other industry categories was presented to provide context for this one industry. The 12.4 million employees in the government and municipality industry accounted for 8% of the total U.S. workforce in year 2024. 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). The full sample included 85,432 clients who worked at 2,679 employers. The EAP user sample for the government group included 6,369 employee clients (8% of EAP full sample) who worked at 317 employer organizations. Longitudinal data at 30-days post use was obtained from 9,063 cases in the full sample (of which 814 were specific to government). The EAP user profile for workers in government – compared to the 7 other industries – was relatively the lowest in use of coaching (4%; other 96% used counseling), highest in use of in-person counseling at an office location (67%; other 33% used online video), highest in formal management referrals from a manager at work (6%; other 94% self-referral) and highest in using the EAP to address a work-related issue. In contrast, this industry was similar to others for the duration of use episode (51 days), client gender (65% women / 35% men) and average client age (40 years). When starting to use the EAP, many of the cases in government reported having clinical level symptoms on standardized measures for anxiety disorder (40% at-risk), depression disorder (27% at-risk), alcohol misuse disorder (10% at-risk) and low work productivity (49% at ...