How to Create an Effective Workplace Health Program

There are benefits for both employees and employers when organizations create a workplace health promotion program.

These programs can include personal health risk identifications for employees, health risk reduction services like counseling and support groups, preventative services such as immunizations, and even treatment health services like an office-based medical clinic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that these programs can improve individual health behaviors, reduce health risks, and enhance overall health, while also lowering healthcare costs, reducing absenteeism, increasing productivity, aiding in recruitment and retention, and improving workplace culture and employee morale.

“The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic heightened employers’ awareness of and need for effective workplace health programs,” according to the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy. “The pandemic revealed the impact of social detriments of health with disproportionately high rates of health risk factors and chronic illnesses among segments of the population that are disadvantaged in these areas, particularly racial and ethnic minority populations.”

“For example, 9 percent of low-wage workers, who often work in service and health care industries that put them in close contact with coworkers and the public, reported being in fair or poor health, which in turn puts them at greater risk for becoming seriously ill if they contract COVID-19,” the CDC continued.

But what is a workplace health promotion program? Find out in the video below.