What is a Employee Health Promotion ?
Posted by Health Promotion | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 10-07-2009
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According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people shift their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, shift behavior, and create environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”
Employee Health Promotion : Action Steps
The process of assembling a Employee Health Promotion involves:
- Identifying the current health status of your employeesIdentifying the current health status of your employees
- Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
- Promoting and launching the programs
- Building in motivational incentives
- Measuring the influence
- Revising programs based on evaluation outcomes
It may even include planning policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your worksite (such as flextime).
Steps to Starting a Employee Health Promotion
- Conduct an business assessment
- Get upper management backing
- Establish a Employee Health Promotion Committee
- Get employee input
- Design goals/objectives
- Design and enable program activities
- Identify incentives
- Review outcomes
One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through inclusive Employee Health Promotion Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help employees live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs. In fact, one of the goals/objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to stimulate the proportion of employees that participate in a inclusive Employee Health Promotion at their worksite to 75 percent.