Wellness Watch Blog May 2010

Last week I attended the New England Health Institutes’s Forum on Employee Health Promotion. It was an executive roundtable discussion and one of the critical  issues discussed was whether health promotion programs improve employee health and hold down health care costs — the question many employers ask as they wrestle with what to do about health care spending. The opening presenter was Ron Goetzel, PhD, who is Research Professor at Emory University. I was really excited to hear what Dr. Goetzel had to say because he is a widely published expert in health and productivity management (HPM), return-on-investment (ROI), program evaluation and outcomes research.

In his presentation, he highlighted research studies where companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Highmark and Citibank have shown ROI for their worksite wellness programs. It was impressive. However, the research and parameters for these types of programs are difficult if not impossible to administer in most companies that do not have the money to support the implementation and research needed to show results. But it was gratifying to know that targeted health promotion practices do make a difference and can be documented. I did take away one simple statement from Dr Goetzel — providing individual health promotion counseling to high risk employees in a healthy culture can be the magic bullet for successful worksite wellness efforts.

What is a healthy corporate environment with regard to worksite wellness? I see it as twofold —environmentally healthy and culturally healthy. Here are some components of both:

• Environmentally healthy– healthy food choices in the cafeteria and vending machines, offering a smoke-free environment, indoor and outdoor spaces for healthy activities and opportunities to take part in a wide variety of health and fitness programs.
• Culturally healthy–Support and visible participation from senior management in healthy activities, aligning employee wellness with company goals and policies, giving employees time and encouragement from managers to take part in health and fitness activities and offering incentives to participate.

If you are interested in reading the review of the results of worksite health promotion studies, check out the February supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine “What Works in Worksite Health Promotion”. Ron Goetzel is one of the authors.