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A new rigorous study of workplace wellness programs suggests that these may not be as effective as employers hope, at least in the short term. Employees on wellness training have become more aware of their diet and exercise, but have not achieved better results for various health measures or spent less on health care.
The 80% of large US employers who offer workplace wellness programs hope this benefit will benefit everyone. Programs (which usually include health assessments and information sessions) are supposed to help employees stay healthier, which would also reduce the costs of their health care and save money for the company. In a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers studied the effect of workplace wellness programs at BJ's Wholesale Club, a chain of in-store retail stores. After 18 months, employees who took the program were more likely to report that they were exercising and trying to maintain their weight, by 8.3 percentage points and 13.6 percentage points , respectively. Still, they were not very different from other employees with respect to other outcomes, such as body mass index, cholesterol and blood pressure, or work performance and the health expenditure.
The study is interesting because it is one of the few to consider whether workplace wellness programs cause changes. Most of the previous studies simply observe the health of employees who voluntarily join a workplace program compared to those who do not, which means that any difference in results may be due to the fact that people who voluntarily join programs are different (for example, in better health) than those who are not. Do not join them to start. In this study, researchers randomly assigned employees from 20 BJ workplaces to a dietetic education provided by a dietitian, whereas it was "as if nothing had happened" in the other 140 sites, according to Zirui Song, co-author of the study, professor of health policy. and medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Song is careful to note that these results should not be generalized to all workplace wellness programs. "It's a study of a workplace wellness program with one employer," he says, and many factors can vary. For example, the content of workplace wellness programs may differ and the results of BJ employees (who tend to be low-income) may not be representative of higher-income employees participating in workplace programs. well-being in the workplace. And if one of the strengths of the program is that it is geographically diverse and covers a large number of people, it also means that many small factors are different and may have different results.
Nevertheless, the study adds to the growing body of research suggesting that workplace wellness programs are not very effective. Last year, researchers published the results of a randomized study on workplace well-being conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Of the 5,000 people who participated, approximately 3,300 were randomly assigned to get health screenings and wellness education, while others were not. The study concluded that the program did not appear to have much impact on total medical care expenditures, employee productivity, or health behavior in the first year.
For Song, the implications of this study may depend on what an employer hopes to get from the wellness program. Employers who value behavior change, for example, may be happy that program staff have become more attentive to their diet and exercise, but others who are more concerned about health care economies, may be discouraged. According to Song, the general idea is that wellness programs can change health behaviors in the short term, but that "expect welfare programs to generate a significant return on investment in the short term could be too optimistic ". His team is now working on a follow-up of the study to review results beyond 18 months in order to have more answers about the long-term effects of wellness programs.
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