Get Active Worksites
What can you do in the workplace to provide education and activities that promote healthy lifestyles for your employees and their families? Companies can provide a work environment that encourages healthy behaviors and helps employees take an active role in managing their health.
If We Know That...
- Employees spend approximately 36 percent of their total waking hours at work, and
- More employees are becoming overweight from poor eating habits and physical inactivity, and
- Heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes are all linked by common risk factors associated with poor eating habits, physical inactivity and tobacco use, then …
As employers, it makes sense for us to get the most out of our employees by creating a work environment that supports and encourages good health.
Health related concerns are not only an issue for employees, but for the nation’s employers, too. Health care premiums have doubled for the employee and employer. Employer profits are being consumed by healthcare costs. In 2000, private business expense for health services as a percentage of profit was 40% before tax and 58% after tax (Cowen,2002).
The cost to employers of obesity-related health problems in 2003 was $13 billion per year, including $8 billion in medical claims, $2.4 billion in paid sick leave, $1.8 billion in life insurance, and almost $1 billion in disability insurance. In addition, an estimated 39 million workdays are lost to obesity-related illnesses each year (DHHS 2004).
The relationship between health risks and health costs has been well documented. A major goal for employers should be to get employees involved in program activities as well as taking care of themselves outside of company-sponsored activities. One prominent study looking at this issue assigned a relative cost to several risk factors illustrating the large potential costs for each risk factor. Their estimates were:
In Wood County we are partnering with worksites to make fruit, vegetables and healthy snacks more affordable through vending, offering on-site access to purchasing community supported agriculture shares of fresh produce and developing incentives and organizational policies that promote health.