Workplace Wellness Programs: Supporting Scientific Research and Wellness Statistics
(Adapted from The Health Promotion First Act prepared by David Anderson, Ph.D., StayWell Health Management)
Employee Lifestyles Impact Employee Health
• Approximately 40 percent of all deaths in the U.S. are premature (at least 900,000 deaths each year) and are due to unhealthy lifestyle choices such as tobacco use, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, misuse of alcohol and drugs, and accidents. Other contributors to early death include genetic predisposition (30 percent), social circumstances (15 percent), poor access to quality health care (10 percent), and environmental exposures (5 percent).
• Unhealthy lifestyle is the primary factor to the six leading causes of death in the United States – heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases, accidents, and diabetes – which collectively account for over 70 percent of all deaths.
• People with healthier lifestyles live an average of 6 to 9 years longer, postpone disability by 9 years and compress disability into fewer years at the end of life.
• The prevalence of obesity among American adults rose to 30 percent in 1999-2000, a 33 percent increase from a decade earlier, and the prevalence of diabetes also rose by 33 percent during approximately the same period (1990 to 1998).
• About two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, 55 percent do not get enough physical activity, 26 percent are completely inactive,10 and only 25 percent eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables If diet/physical activity patterns continue worsening at their current rate, these behaviors will soon surpass tobacco use as contributors to mortality.
• Among young people, the prevalence of overweight has more than quadrupled in the past 20 years to 16 percent, daily participation in high school physical education classes has dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 2003, more than 60 percent eat too much saturated fat, and almost 80 percent do not eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables.
• Lifestyle diseases disproportionately affect women, ethnic and racial minorities, the poor and seniors:
• The prevalence of diabetes among African Americans is about 70 percent higher than among white Americans, and the prevalence among Hispanics is nearly double that for white Americans.
• Women comprise more than 50% of the people who die each year of cardiovascular disease.
• Chronic conditions significantly limit daily activity for 35 percent of persons over 65 years of age.
Financial Impact of Lifestyle
• It is estimated that lifestyle-related chronic diseases account for 70 percent of the nation’s health care costs, which translates to over 11 percent of the entire United States gross domestic product.
• Two comprehensive scientific reviews identified 83 peer-reviewed research studies reporting that people with unhealthy habits have higher health costs.
• Research conservatively estimates that high health risks (high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc) account for at least 25 percent of total health costs.
• Recent research indicates a direct relationship between modifiable lifestyle risks and lower worker productivity, and relevant data suggest that the costs to corporations in lost productivity due to poor employee health may be substantially more than the direct health and disability costs.
• Unhealthy lifestyles frequently lead to chronic disease, many of which cannot be cured and require years or decades of expensive treatments. Below are estimated annual costs of selected unhealthy lifestyles and chronic diseases including obesity, tobacco use, hypertension, diabetes, stress, and inactivity.
Workplace Wellness Programs Improve Health and Yield Major Savings
• Comprehensive scientific reviews identified 378 peer-reviewed research studies showing that Workplace Wellness Programs improve health knowledge, health behaviors, and underlying health conditions.
• Research studies have demonstrated that lifestyle modification may frequently be more effective and cost-effective than health intervention in lowering morbidity and mortality.
• Several scientific reviews indicate that Workplace Wellness Programs reduce health costs and rates of absenteeism and produce a positive return on investment (ROI). The most definitive review of financial impact reported that:
• 18 research studies indicated that these Workplace Wellness Programs reduce health costs, and 14 research studies indicated that they decrease rates of absenteeism costs.
• 13 research studies that calculated benefit/cost ratios all showed the savings from these Workplace Wellness Programs are much greater than their cost, with health cost savings averaging $3.48 and the rates of absenteeism savings averaging $5.82 per dollar invested in the Workplace Wellness Programs.
• Medical costs are expected to exceed 16 percent of United States gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 and to grow at 7.2 percent each year through 2015, when health expenditures will account for 20 percent of GDP:
• Per capita health costs in the United States are the highest in the world and more than double the median for OECD countries, yet the U.S. ranks 26th in terms of healthy life expectancy.
• Medicaid is the second largest item in the majority of state budgets, and its portion of the total budgets is increasing each year.
• Increasing health costs for United States corporations continue to outpace general inflation, averaging 12 percent per year for the past 10 years. This trend is causing a tremendous financial hardship on United States corporations.
2 comments
where are your statistics from and what “peer” reviewed articles indicated a direct link between wellness programs and cost-saving (beyond the cost of wellness program)
best,
MJN
Hi MJN,
Following is the list of references used in the article:
McGinnis JM, Foege WH. Actual causes of death in the United States. JAMA 1993;270:2207-2212.
2 Mokdad AH, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000. JAMA 2004;291:1238-1245.
3 McGinnis JM, Foege WH. The immediate vs the important. JAMA 2004;291:1263-1264.
4 McGinnis JM, Foege WH. Actual causes of death in the United States. JAMA 1993;270:2207-2212.
5 Anderson RN, Smith BL. Deaths: leading causes for 2002. National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 53, No. 17. National Center for Health Statistics, March 7, 2005. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_17.pdf
6 Stamler J, Stamler R, Neaton JD. Low risk-factor profile and long-term cardiovascular and noncardiovascular mortality and life expectancy. Findings for 5 large cohorts of young adult and middle-aged men and women. JAMA 1999; 282:2012-2018.
7 Vita AJ, Terry RB, Hubert HB, Fries JF. Aging, health risks, and cumulative disability. N Engl J Med 1998;338:1035-1041.
8 Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Ogden CL, Johnson CL. Prevalence and Trends in Obesity Among US Adults, 1999-2000. JAMA 2002;288:1723-1727.
9 Diabetes trends in the U.S.: 1990–1998. Mokdad AH, Ford ES, Bowman BA, Nelson DE, Engelgau MM, Vinicor F, Marks JS. Diabetes Care, 2000; 23:1278–1283.
10Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prevalence of Physical Activity, Including Lifestyle Activities Among Adults — United States, 2000—2001. MMWR 2003;52(32):764-769. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5232a2.htm
11 Serdula MK, Gillespie C, Kettel-Khan L, Farris R, Seymour J, Denny C. Trends in Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among Adults in the United States: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1994–2000. Am J Public Health. 2004;94:1014–1018.
12 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overweight and Obesity. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/
13 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Participation in High School Physical Education United States, 1991—2003. MMWR 2004;53(36):844-847. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5336a5.htm
14 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nutrition and the Health of Young People. http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/nutrition/facts.htm
15 Department of Health and Human Services. A systematic approach to health, healthy people 2010 goals, Goal 2: Eliminate health disparities. Healthy People 2010 (Conference Edition, in Two Volumes) 2000; Washington, DC.
16 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Heart Disease. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/heart.htm
17 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Disabilities/Limitations. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/disable.htm
18 Fries JF, Koop CE, Soklov J, Beadle CE, and Wright D. Beyond health promotion: Reducing need and demand for medical care. Health Affairs 1998;17(2):70-84.
19 Aldana SG. Financial impact of health promotion programs: A comprehensive review of the literature. American Journal of Health Promotion 2001;15:296-320.
20 Max W. The Financial Impact of Smoking of Health Related Costs: A Review of the Literature, American Journal of Health Promotion 2001; 15:321-331.
21 Anderson DR, Whitmer RW, Goetzel RZ, Ozminkowski RJ, Wasserman J, Serxner S. The relationship between modifiable health risks and group-level health care expenditures. American Journal of Health Promotion 2000;15:45-52.
22 Burton WN, Conti DJ, Chen C, Schultz AB, Edington DW. The role of health risk factors and disease on worker productivity. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 1999;41:863-877.
23 Boles M, Pelletier B, Lynch W. Relationship between health risks and work productivity. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2004; 46:737-745.
24 Integrated Benefits Institute. Linking Medical Care to Productivity, February 2001. http://www.ibiweb.org/publications/download/402
25 Goetzel RZ, Long SR, Ozminkowski RJ, Hawkins K, Wang S, Lynch W. Health, absence, disability, and presenteeism cost estimates of certain physical and mental health conditions affecting U.S. employers. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2004;46:398-412.
26 Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Overweight and Obesity. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Costs are estimated for the year 2000. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/faq.htm
27 Finkelstein EA, Fiebelkorn IC, Wang G. National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity. Health Affairs – Web Exclusive, May 14, 2003; W3:219-226. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w3.219v1
28 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Economic Costs — United States, 1995—1999, MMWR 2002; 51(14):300-303. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/economics/mmwr5114.highlights.htm
29 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. National Blood Pressure Education Program. High Blood Pressure in the United States. http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/mission/abouthbp/abouthbp.htm
30 Hogan P, Dall T, Nikolov P. Economic costs of diabetes in the US in 2002. Diabetes Care 2003;26:917-932.
31 Davis JA. Workers’ compensation claims for stress-related diseases. Journal of Occupational Medicine 1985;27:821-825.
32 Estimate includes only direct medical costs; indirect costs are not included. Source: Pratt M, Macera CA, Wang G. Higher Direct Medical Costs Associated With Physical Inactivity. The Physician and Sports Medicine 2000;28(10):63-70. http://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/2000/10_00/pratt.htm
33 Wilson M, Holman P B, Hammock A. A Comprehensive Review of the Effects of Worksite Health Promotion on Health-Related Outcomes. American Journal of Health Promotion 1996;10:429-436.
34 Knowler WC, Barrett-Connor E, Fowler SE, Hamman RF, Lachin JM, Walker EA, Nathan DM; Diabetes Prevention Research Group. Reduction in the incidence of type 2 diabetes with lifestyle intervention or metformin. New England Journal of Medicine 2002;346:393-403.
35 Iestra JA, Kromhout D, van der Schouw YT, Grobbee DE, Boshuizen HC, van Staveren WA. Effect size estimates of lifestyle and dietary changes on all-cause mortality in coronary artery disease patients: a systematic review. Circulation 2005;112:924-934.
36 Pelletier K. A review and analysis of the clinical and cost-effectiveness studies of comprehensive health promotion and disease management programs at the worksite. American Journal of Health Promotion 2001;16:107-116.
37 Pelletier KR. A review and analysis of the clinical and cost-effectiveness studies of comprehensive health promotion and disease management programs at the worksite: 2000-2004 update (VI). Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2005; 47:1051-1058.
38 Chapman LS. Meta-evaluation of worksite health promotion economic return studies: 2005 update. American Journal of Health Promotion 2005;19(6):1-11. (Art of Health Promotion Section)
39 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. National health expenditure projections 2005-2015, forecast and selected tables. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/03_NationalHealthAccountsProjected.asp#TopOfPage
40 Borger C, Smith S, Truffer C, Keehan S, Sisko A, Poisal J, Clemens MK. Health spending projections through 2015: Changes on the horizon. Health Affairs – Web Exclusive, February 22, 2006; 25:w61-w73. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.25.w61
41 Reinhardt UE, Hussey PS, Anderson GF. U.S. health care spending in an international context. Why is U.S. spending so high and can we afford it? Health Affairs 2004;23(3):10-25.
42 The World Health Report, 2006. World Health Organization, 2006. Healthy life span data is located in Annex Table 1, which is accessible at http://www.who.int/whr/2006/annex/06_annex1_en.pdf
43 Hogan B. States eye deep Medicaid cuts. AARP Bulletin, January, 2003.
44 Mercer Human Resource Consulting. US National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans. November 22, 2004. http://www.mercerhr.com/pressrelease/details.jhtml/dynamic/idContent/1162645
Cheers,
JB
Leave a Comment