Workplace wellness programs may well not improve employees’ health
09 June, 2020
A new study has discovered that a workplace wellness program had limited benefits for employees’ health.
New research has found that a workplace wellness program at the University of Illinois didn't improve employees’ health, reduce the frequency of medical diagnosis, or reduce visits to wait medical appointments.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, calls into question the worthiness of workplace wellness programs and the industry that supports them.
Wellness programs
The United States 2010 Affordable Care Act had three goals: make affordable health insurance available for more folks, expand the Medicaid program, that provides people on low incomes medical support, and support new methods to deliver medical care.
In the wake of this last goal, many workplaces have implemented wellness programs, including offers of financial incentives for medical screenings, annual health risk assessments, and wellness activities, such as for example support to give up smoking, physical activities, or activities to help manage illnesses.
However, few randomized, handled trials looking at the consequences of the programs on employees’ health took place.
The authors of today's study set out to fill this gap in the literature.
Almost 5,000 participants
The study occurred at the University of Illinois between 9th August 2016 and 26th April 2018, involving 4,834 employees of the university. Of the full total participants, 2,770 were women, and the mean age was 43.9 years.
The researchers assigned 3,300 persons to the procedure group. These participants were eligible to take part in an average workplace wellness program, involving workplace biometric screening and surveying, an online health risk assessment, and wellness activities.
The other participants acted as a control group and didn't take part in the wellness program.
The study gathered responses from the participants after 12 and 24 months.
Information gathered included:
- clinician-collected biometrics that give a general view of the fitness of a person
- medical diagnosis and medical-use administrative claims, such as diagnoses for particular illnesses or visits to a healthcare facility
- self-reported health behaviors and beliefs, such as whether people thought they were more likely to have high blood pressure or high cholesterol
- No significant health advantages
- After analyzing the info, the team behind the analysis found no significant variations in biometrics, medical diagnoses, or medical trips at either 12 or two years between the control group and the wellness program participants.
According to co-author of the study Prof. David Molitor of the Gies College of Business in Champaign, IL and the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, “[m]any employers use workplace wellness programs so that they can improve employee health and reduce medical costs, but randomized evaluations of their efficacy are rare
“Our randomized analysis found no significant aftereffect of this program on employee health measures or medical use.”
However, more people in the wellness program did report having a primary care doctor towards the end of the trial.
Those in the wellness program had a better perception of their health across a variety of factors, such as for example body mass index, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and glucose levels.
For Prof. Molitor, “[a] drastically higher proportion of employees in the treatment group reported having a primary care doctor after two years. The workplace wellness program also substantially improved a set of employee health beliefs on average.
“But we found no significant aftereffect of this program on employee health measures or medical use, demonstrating a mismatch between employee perceptions of workplace wellness programs and actual improvement in health.
“These findings shed light on employees’ perceptions of workplace wellness programs, which may influence long-run effects on health.”
Based on the authors of the analysis, previous research has shown mixed results on the potency of workplace wellness programs for employees’ health.
For Prof. Julian Reif, also of the Gies College of Business and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-author of the analysis, “[m]any prior studies discovered that workplace wellness programs improved health and reduced medical use, but those results were likely because of distinctions in who participates.
Our study complements recent randomized studies and demonstrates the worthiness of using randomized evaluations to determine causal impact.”
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
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