Statistics on corporate wellness program

I like workplace wellness statistics that go out for two years because the results are pretty conclusive by that time. If you can get your employees to participate in a good wellness program chances are they will adopt and maintain healthy behaviors for years to come.

Most wellness studies show the employees have better health behaviors. Wellness programs can also help alleviate depression and the symptoms of depression as well as improve life satisfaction. Even the American Heart Association has completed an extensive review of the ability of wellness programs to improve health and reduce cardiovascular risk.

Others have evaluated all of the research and reported that wellness programs, do in fact, have the ability to improve employee health. In researchers completed one of the most rigorous and comprehensive reviews of wellness programs. This study is called the Rand Report. Here is what the authors concluded:.

We find that workplace wellness programs can help contain the current epidemic of lifestyle-related diseases, the main driver of premature morbidity and mortality as well as health care cost in the United States.

The foundation of any good wellness program must be focused on helping employees adopt healthy behaviors. Elevated blood glucose, high blood cholesterol, and high blood pressure are almost all caused by unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity. Eating and exercising are behaviors. A few years ago, a randomized clinical trial that helped people improve their nutrition and physical activity was published. Our workplace wellness statistics showed that in as little as six weeks health risks could improve dramatically.

Those who maintain healthy behaviors experience lower health risks for six weeks, six months, 12 months, and even out to 18 months after this program began. When you change your diet, get active, and avoid tobacco, really good things happen.

Boise School District is a WellSteps client and not long ago we published the results of their changes in health risks. After one year, a lot of employees who had elevated health risks at baseline, had reached healthy risk levels. Source: JOEM. Reductions in elevated health risks are important. Low health risks are the foundation of good health, and wellness programs are a great way to help employees and their spouses avoid elevated health risks.

There are hundreds of research papers that evaluated the ability of wellness programs to reduce elevated health risks. One particular study looking at almost , wellness participants and showed that 5 of 7 health risks improved after one year. Another researcher looked at all of the published studies to get a consensus. This review showed that comprehensive wellness programs will have a significant impact on elevated health risks.

There is one weakness that almost all wellness programs have. After 30 years of evaluating dozens and dozens of programs it has become clear that it is difficult to impossible to get large groups of employees to reach and maintain a healthy body weight. The obesity epidemic is caused by a variety of cultural factors and helping employees lose weight has proven to be exceptionally difficult. While the workplace wellness statistics suggest that helping people improve blood cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose is possible, helping people lose weight and keep the weight off has proven to be hard to do.

Worksite wellness programs are not very effective at helping people lose weight. Just take a look at the body mass index BMI data in the table above. Those who are obese do lose some weight after a few years but not very much.

There is some hope. Recently, the RAND study showed some promising results:. If the focus of your wellness program is to help individuals reach and maintain a healthy body weight you should prepare yourself to be disappointed.

The unhealthy culture that surrounds most of us makes it extremely difficult to lose weight, in fact, most people in the United States and in the industrialized world gain weight every year. Wellness programs are very effective at reducing elevated health risks like blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol. But they are not very effective at helping people lose weight.

Without the impact of all the wellness programs in the world, obesity would be even worse than it currently is. Wellness programs may not help your employees reach a healthy body weight but it looks like they are helping your employees to stop gaining weight.

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Wellness Program Demographics and Participation. Additional Employee Wellness Statistics. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The collected findings reveal the benefits of committing to corporate wellness programs. The results speak for themselves, showing significant impacts upon not only the employee journey, but on business profitability as well.

Read on to discover 23 revealing statistics on emerging trends and beneficial outcomes of prioritizing healthy initiatives in your workplace. Download the infographic.