Prevention And The Growing Epidemic Of Chronic Health Diseases And Conditions

Chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and obesity are the most common, costly, and preventable of all health problems. In 2012, about half of adults had one or more chronic health conditions. In 2010, seven out of ten causes of death were chronic diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Dallas County, Texas (Edwards et al., 2012). Cardiovascular disease is the condition that involves narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain or stroke. The common risk factor for CVD includes, age, sex, family history, smoking, poor diet, high blood pressure, high

Health in the United States has become a serious issue. With about six in every 10 people suffering from either being overweight or obese in addition to other unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, heavy drinking or lack of exercise. These lifestyle choices have caused a number of chronic illnesses to skyrocket to high rates. “These chronic conditions have become a major burden, as they lead to decreased quality of life, premature death and disability, and increased health care cost” (pg xiii). What the workplace is trying to do is promote a healthier lifestyle for the employee. Some reasons for doing so is that the employer cares about the well being of their employee so that they can be more productive and to help reduce the risk of getting a chronic disease. Since these chronic diseases are becoming more life threatening and the cost of health care is increasing the employers are implementing health promotion and disease prevention strategies also known as workplace wellness programs. “Workplace wellness takes advantages of employers’ access to employees at an age when interventions can still change their long-term health trajectory. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act supports this trend with several provisions regarding health promotion and also mandated this study” (pg xiii).

Being one of the largest cities Houston’s population relies heavily on your energy company to provide energy. Your energy company is a large, successful company, and we believe your high employee retention rate plays a key role in your company’s success. However, an office setting does not always allow your employees to get their daily amounts of exercise. Along with not receiving their daily amounts of exercise, poor nutrition habits and strain due to work, your employees are facing major health problems like high cholesterol and hypertension. My co-workers and I believe having a worksite wellness program will help improve your employee’s health status and lower their need for medication, which can lead to lower fees your company has to

Employers have created wellness programs to tackle the unhealthy workforce issue that hampers productivity and acts as an obstacle to produce efficient results in respective industries. Health seminars, sports league games, sponsored exercises, gym facilities and health screenings are among the types of wellness programs employers have often used to stimulate a healthy workforce (Investopedia). In addition, wellness programs also include financial incentives in the form of insurance subsidies and penalties for employees that do not complete a certain requisite set forth by the employer. However, many employers are now very concerned about implementing wellness programs in their respective companies right after the Affordable

In recent years, an increasing number of businesses have been encouraging employees to willingly improve their health to regulate rising insurance costs. They have started applying surcharges for those who chose unhealthy lifestyles. These people include smokers and the obese. They are raising insurances premiums along with establishing wellness programs to help ensure that the employees are taking advantage of all the benefits have to offer all while lowering the burden of their costs.

Facilitating a Health and Wellness Program in the workplace is the greatest assessment an employer can make because it would be an investment in their most valuable asset, the employees. With there being more urgency today than ever before, America is under pressure to be productive even as healthcare costs proceed to rise and bombard the most important resource, the employees. Research and data show:

There have been a lot, and we mean a LOT, of studies on the impact of wellness programs for small businesses. The results vary but nearly all of them agree on one point: a wellness program helps boost productivity. Now, depending on the type of program you choose to implement, your employees could be benefiting from a workout during lunch hour or perhaps just eating better, but whatever the case, you can bolster their productivity by up to 300%. Just for reference, the minimum increase in productivity reported was 20%, so this one’s a definite

Setting the stage for starting a workplace-based wellness program will be the most difficult part. The program can be achieved by getting upper management support and forming a wellness/health services unit to help plan, promote, implement and maintain the program.

You're concerned about your employees' health and wellness. It's one of the many reasons you've been considering an office wellness program. You've read up on the benefits of these programs, and you're convinced it could do your employees and your business a world of good.

You may ask yourself, how will the workplace health program reduces the risk of the chronic diseases or conditions and cut healthcare cost for treatment? The reason is because this program targets and “encourages [a] healthy lifestyles [that includes] healthy eating, fitness, not smoking” and no consumption of alcoholic beverages

Workplace Wellness Programs (WWP) are those programs set-up by employers to help their employees improve their health and wellbeing. These programs encourage individual behavior change, in addition to helping reduce stressors in the workplace that can have negative effects on health behaviors (Andersen et al., 2015). Key features of wellness programs are health-risk assessments and screenings for high blood pressure and cholesterol; behavior modification programs, such as tobacco cessation, weight management, and exercise; health education, including classes or referrals to online sites for health advice; and changes in the work environment or provision of special benefits to encourage

Wellness programs can be provided by employers as a service under discretionary benefits. Employers began implementing wellness programs to promote and maintain employees’ physical and psychological health in the 1980s (Martocchio, 2014). There are several different wellness programs that companies may provide to their employees such as stress reduction, nutrition and weight loss, exercise and fitness activities, and health-screening programs (Martocchio, 2014). According to the survey conducted by the Rand Corporation on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, currently 80 percent of employers offer nutrition and weight activities, 72 percent offer exercise and fitness programs, 77

This study began with a database search to locate all the current and relevant articles about workplace-based health promotion. A total of nine articles from the last ten years have been assessed for relevance for the study.

Wellness programs can vary greatly in options and can include a wide, narrow or combination of employee participants within the public and private sectors. The most prevalent factors determining the offering of a wellness program are the organizational size (number of employees) and financial resources. It is estimated that one third of FT employers with 50-100 workers have a wellness program in place as opposed to four fifths of FT employers with more than 1000 workers. Smaller organizations without a program were financially incapable to provide one and larger organizations cited lack of employee interest. (RAND Corporation, 2014) The primary difference between public and private organizations, especially larger ones, are the financial resources

You can call it Workplace Wellness, Corporate Wellness, or Workplace Health but whatever you call it, it’s pretty much the same thing. The workplace has some type of program set up to promote healthy lifestyle choices. It promotes healthy behavior and healthy outcomes. The programs offered can range from smoking cessation to full out wellness centers composed of gyms, exercise classes in addition to wellness coaching related to weight management, on-site fitness programs, health-related benefits, and mental well-being. Some workplaces offer incentives for being an active part of their health programs.