**1. Introduction**

Work absenteeism is a global phenomenon that affects public and private organizations with detrimental effects on employers, employees, government, and society. Globally, annual statistics indicate the occurrence of about 374 million non-fatal work accidents, which cause at least four days of absence from work. In addition, over 2.7 million worker deaths from occupational accidents or illnesses have been reported [1]. In Europe, sickness absenteeism averaged 11.5 days per worker per year from 1970 to 2019 [2]. In Brazil, a total of 2,934,155 occupational accidents were recorded from 2015 to 2019, of which 34% caused at least 16 days away from work. Of these accidents or occupational diseases, 85,603 occurrences involved Brazilian civil servants from the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches [3]. Moreover, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has reported negative economic effects at around 3.94% of the Gross Domestic Product worldwide each year due to work absenteeism [1].

Several studies on sickness absenteeism in the public service have reported some pathological predictors of work absences, including mental health problems, musculoskeletal disorders, trauma to different parts of the body, and respiratory system diseases, among others [4–7]. In this context, individuals with comorbidity may present a higher degree of absence from work due to the level of human vulnerability. In Australia, individuals with comorbidity reported greater symptom severity, poorer work performance, and a greater

**Citation:** Sampaio, F.E.; Oliveira, M.J.S.; Areosa, J.; Facas, E. Prevalence of Comorbidity and Its Effects on Sickness-Absenteeism among Brazilian Legislative Civil Servants. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2023**, *20*, 5036. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph20065036

Academic Editor: Delfina Gabriela Garrido Ramos

Received: 15 January 2023 Revised: 27 February 2023 Accepted: 7 March 2023 Published: 13 March 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

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number of working days lost when compared to individuals with more favorable health conditions [8].
