PURPOSE To develop a theory-based questionnaire to assess readiness for change in small workplaces adopting wellness programs. DESIGN In developing our scale, we first tested items via "think-aloud" interviews. We tested the revised items in a cross-sectional quantitative telephone survey. SETTING The study setting comprised small workplaces (20-250 employees) in low-wage industries. SUBJ...

OBJECTIVES Using a large natural experiment among 39 employers, we examined the effect of adding financial incentives to workplace wellness programs. STUDY DESIGN The 39 study employers used the same national insurer to administer their wellness programs, allowing us to observe preventive and health-promoting behaviors before and after financial incentives were implemented. Fifteen treatment ...

Self-care among health care providers is an important component of their ability to provide quality health care to patients. Health care institutions have programs in place for students that emphasize health and wellness, but few programs are available for faculty and staff. To address this gap and facilitate modeling health and wellness strategies for students, a New England institution that e...

OBJECTIVE To provide guidance regarding appropriate use of outcomes-based incentives as part of a reasonably designed wellness program designed to improve health and lower cost while protecting employees from discrimination and unaffordable coverage. METHODS The process included reviewing the literature, regulations, case studies, and other resources while developing consensus through numerou...

BACKGROUND State employee health plans sometimes provide worksite wellness programs to reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases among their members, but few offer the comprehensive range of interventions recommended by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services. COMMUNITY CONTEXT North Carolina's State Health Plan for Teachers and State Employees provides health coverage for approximate...

Health care payers in the United States and abroad have used wellness incentives as a tool to improve health and reduce costs. In Germany, public insurers operate many such programs. Participation nearly doubled between 2004 and 2008, reaching one-quarter of the publicly insured population. An evaluation of one large wellness program there found that it reduced costs. However, population-level ...

Amid soaring health spending, there is growing interest in workplace disease prevention and wellness programs to improve health and lower costs. In a critical meta-analysis of the literature on costs and savings associated with such programs, we found that medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs and that absenteeism costs fall by about $2.73 for every dolla...

Caregivers report poorer health and wellness than the general population and identify numerous barriers to their attending programs to improve health and wellness. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of employing a telehealth delivery method to enhance access to caregiver wellness programs. This article presents the quantitative results of a mixed methods feasibility study ...

Collegiate campus recreation departments are held to increasingly higher levels of accountability, particularly as to whether recreational programs and activities have impact on student learning. This pioneering study found that students who participated in selected fitness and wellness programs offered by a certain four-year, public institution of higher education in the Mid-west scored signif...