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 The messages are highlighted in the association's new guidelines for
employers who want to promote heart health in increasingly popular
"workplace wellness" programs. They are: stop smoking, get active,
lose weight, eat better, manage blood pressure, control cholesterol
and reduce blood sugar.
Employers who incorporate the AHA’s “Life’s Simple 7” plan into
their programs will have healthier employees, the AHA advisory panel
wrote in Circulation.
“There are about 155 million working Americans today, that’s about
half of our population,” said Dr. Elliott M. Antman, senior
physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and president of
the American Heart Association.
It makes sense to target education and intervention efforts at this
large group using workplace wellness programs, he said.
“We want to inform people about what heart-healthy living involves
and have companies recognized for promoting heart health,” Antman
told Reuters Health by phone. “We hope the lessons learned from that
environment will be carried home so workers’ spouses and family will
benefit as well.”
A “comprehensive” workplace wellness program must include health
education, supportive social and physical environments, integration
into other organizational initiatives, links to other programs like
employee health and safety, and wellness screenings. Employers need
high-quality models to develop and implement effective programs,
according to the AHA recommendations.
Antman referred to the AHA’s My Life Check online tool (http://mylifecheck.heart.org/mobile/assessment.aspx),
which rates an individual’s level of heart health based on the
Life’s Simple 7 criteria and assigns an overall score out of 10.
This tool gives individuals a sense of their heart health. Employee
scores can be averaged to give a whole company an idea of how well
they are promoting healthy behavior, he said.
“Companies can track progress over time, which is different than
what is available now,” Antman said.
Each workplace is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all
approach to workplace wellness, he said – some employers may have a
gym in the building or access to one off-site, but may need to
improve the food offered at the cafeteria, or provide more walking
space.
Antman hopes that by recognizing employers who have effectively
implemented a program, the AHA will inspire more and more companies
to take part.
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Other recognition programs, like HealthLead and Wellness Council of
America’s Well Workplace Awards, are inconsistent with each other
and do not focus specifically on heart health, according to the AHA
advisory.
“It can be confusing, not knowing which scorecard you want to use
for your program,” said Julie Stich, director of research for the
International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
If an employer has noted that heart problems are one of their most
frequent employee health issues, then this new AHA scoring system
may be useful, Stich told Reuters Health by phone. It seems
straightforward and incorporates many aspects that companies already
include in their programs, she said.
But many employers still don’t have a clear picture of health status
in the workplace, she said. Those who do most commonly cite diabetes
as the biggest issue, with heart disease coming second, she said.
Health benefits and missed days of work due to illness are among the
biggest employer expenses, Antman noted, and investing in a wellness
program should yield higher productivity and decreased expenses.
For smaller companies, there are low cost or no-cost wellness
options, Stich said. But, she added, it can take three to five years
before you can measure the impact of a wellness program.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1q3uqj1
Circulation, online April 13, 2015.
(Refiles to revise para 13 to clarify that the two programs are
inconsistent with each other, not internally inconsistent.)
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