Workplace Wellness
Evidence-based workplace wellness research and employer guides have been created in partnership with Johns Hopkins University or UC Berkeley. These research guides can help employers promote employee health, increase program participation, and improve productivity.
What is the Value on Investment for Diabetes and Hypertensions Programs? investigates the efficacy and return on investment of workplace programs that target two of the most prevalent and expensive health issues: diabetes and hypertension. From Evidence to Practice: Workplace Wellness that Works provides a broad overview of workplace wellness programs and their effectiveness. This research is a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Transamerica Institute.
FINDING FIT: Implementing Workplace Wellness Programs Successfully is an evidence-based workplace wellness technical report and employer guide meant to help employers in their efforts to promote employee health, increase program participation, and improve productivity. It is a collaboration between Transamerica Center for Health Studies, a former division of Transamerica Institute, and the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces at UC Berkeley.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the workforce and highlighted employers' important role in supporting their employees' health. With many people working remotely and contending with the pandemic, employers can enhance their wellness programs to reduce the risks of many health conditions.
This white paper and more detailed employer guide examine the evidence base and review the effectiveness and value on investment (VOI) of workplace-based programs focused on two of the most common and costly health conditions: diabetes and hypertension.
Because a broad range of options are available to employers, it is important to apply an evidence-based framework when determining the most effective investments. The white paper and employer guide provide practical information for employers and their benefits advisors to evaluate the costs, health impact, and overall VOI when designing their programs.
The white paper and employer guide were developed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) with support from Transamerica Institute. The JHSPH team analyzed and compiled research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Community Preventive Service Task Force, forming the basis for the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard. Additionally, the JHSPH team conducted interviews and focus groups with subject matter experts from academic, corporate, provider, and consultant disciplines.
From Evidence to Practice: Workplace Wellness That Works
The rise in health care costs has led many employers to find new ways to help employees stay healthy and productive while simultaneously reducing health care costs associated with preventable chronic diseases. A trend to address this issue is the growth of workplace wellness or health promotion programs. To gain insight into the best practices that are driving the most successful workplace wellness programs across the country, national nonprofit Transamerica Institute® and its former Transamerica Center for Health Studies® partnered with the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies (IHPS) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to release an evidence-based, straightforward workplace health promotion guide for employers.
Transamerica Institute partnered with Dr. Ron Goetzel, a senior scientist and director at IHPS, who led the research project and worked with his Institute team to develop a series of actionable steps to help guide employers in designing and implementing a new workplace wellness program or evaluating an existing program.
Employers can use this Guide to implement best and promising practices in their workplaces, thereby maximizing the impact of their program and the benefits to employees and the business alike. The Guide offers easy-to-use, real-world recommendations on the design, implementation, and evaluation of workplace health promotion programs with a focus on addressing various important health factors.
To create a comprehensive program, employers must address both the individual risk factors affecting their employees and the organizational factors that help or hinder employees’ efforts to reduce their risks and get healthier. The strongest programs create a culture of health, intertwining individual-level health promotion efforts with the overall company goals and objectives and ensuring that both leadership and the workplace environment support healthy choices.
Programs are also most effective when they are clearly tailored to the goals and needs of specific populations and provide sufficient opportunities for employee engagement and input. Thus, this guide includes steps to address various factors affecting employee health at both the individual and organizational levels.
This guide includes steps to address various factors affecting different populations of employees and the workforce at large.
UC Berkeley
FINDING FIT: Implementing Workplace Wellness Programs Successfully
Continuing previous research on trends in workplace wellness programs, nonprofit Transamerica Institute and it's former Transamerica Center for Health Studies (TCHS), together with the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces (ICHW) at UC Berkeley, collaborated on FINDING FIT: Implementing Workplace Wellness Programs Successfully, to give employers the tools to shape wellness programs for their employees. This evidence-based workplace wellness technical report and employer guide are meant to help employers in their efforts to promote employee health, increase program participation, and improve productivity.
The 2018 Employer Guide focuses on effective wellness programs and provides a step-by-step process for identifying one or more wellness programs that fit each employer’s unique characteristics. Eight different wellness program types were identified, including education programs, social community building, preventive care, healthy habit development, and disease management. To create the assessment tool, each wellness program type was analyzed by its essential requirements for successful implementation.
FINDING FIT: Increasing Participation Rates in Wellness Programs for Small and Medium Organizations
The Technical Report, FINDING FIT: Increasing Participation Rates in Wellness Programs for Small and Medium Organizations. This evidenced-based report analyzes how workplace wellness programs apply to all sizes of organizations, featuring several components including a literature review, overviews of employer focus group responses, an analysis of 2017 Harris Poll Surveys - of 1,520 employers and 2,892 employees, and a list of publicly available resources on workplace wellness programs.
ICHW and TCHS have also released the FINDING FIT: Interactive Assessment Tool, which will guide users through an assessment to determine the wellness program type(s) that best “fits” their organization based on their organization's unique opportunities and constraints. The tool's results will help users decide which wellness program type(s) to introduce to their organization. To determine fit, this tool takes users through 3 sections of questions and then automatically determines the best-fitting programs based on the number of facilitators and barriers present. The tool also links to the Finding Fit employer guide publication so that users can learn more about addressing constraints, including employee motivation. In addition, the tool allows users to revisit and adjust their answers to see how their results might change in real-time, reflecting which wellness program types might be a better fit if small changes are made in the organization. This tool is an online user-friendly version of the assessment tool found within the Finding Fit employer guide and is meant to be used as a standalone assessment or in conjunction with the employer guide publication.