More than half a million New Yorkers reported needing medical care in the past 12 months, but not receiving it.
Worksite Wellness
The workplace, particularly small businesses, has been greatly affected by the increasing costs of health insurance. Employers are the largest purchaser of health insurance and have the most to benefit from improvements in employee health and productivity. Risk factors for chronic diseases, which are believed to be responsible for a large portion of health care costs, can be modified and costs can be contained through well-designed health promotion programs. Studies have shown that worksite health promotion decreases absenteeism and reduces employee health risks, leading to lower health care costs.
The NYC Health Department worked with Cornell University to pilot worksite health promotion activities aimed at improving the health of employees at participating worksites. Private funding to the Fund for Public Health in New York (FPHNY) supported efforts to compare the effects of high-intensity worksite health promotion interventions with moderate intensity interventions. Ten organizations with a total of 27 work sites and 32,535 employees participated in the project.
The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of health promotion programs at the workplace and, specifically, determine the effectiveness of public-private collaboration in designing and implementing these interventions. Assessments were determined based on the following factors: 1) improvements in health behaviors and health risk factors of employees; 2) reductions in self-reported health care utilization and associated medical expenditures; 3) improvements in employee productivity measured by self-reported absenteeism and on-the-job presenteeism; 4) improvement in key organizational cost measures, employee attitudes toward work, satisfaction with the work environment, and improvement in overall well-being; and 5) the cost-benefit of a worksite health promotion intervention. Research findings indicated that establishing partnerships between the public and private sectors in creating workplace health promotion programs can not only improve health behaviors and reductions in health risk factors for all individuals at participating sites, but also reduce employer costs.