Evidence-Based Findings on Worksite Health Promotion Interventions
Evidence-based recommendations in two key areas of employee health promotion assessing health risks, and decreasing tobacco use can now benefit employers, planners and others who make decisions about worksite health and productivity programs and policies. The new recommendations and findings are from the Community Preventive Services Task Force (Task Force) an independent, nonfederal, volunteer, group of public health and prevention experts appointed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director.
The Task Force findings are based on systematic reviews of the scientific literature led by the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) scientists at CDC in collaboration with federal and nonfederal experts in research, practice, and policy.
The following table summarizes these Community Guide reviews and Task Force recommendations. Important details about the recommendations, review methods and other findings are published in the February 2010 special worksite supplement of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Citations are provided below the table.
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Worksite Setting Intervention
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Findings of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services* |
|---|---|
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Assessing Employee Health Risks: Assessment of Health Risks with Feedback (AHRF) to Change Employees’ Health |
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| AHRF plus health education with or without other interventions | Recommended, based on strong evidence of effectiveness in improving one or more health behaviors or conditions in populations of workers |
| Insufficient evidence was found to determine effectiveness in achieving improvements in one or more health behaviors and conditions among participating workers | |
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Decreasing Employee Tobacco Use
|
|
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Incentives and Competitions to Increase Smoking Cessation |
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| Incentives and competitions when combined with additional interventions | Recommended, based on sufficient evidence of effectiveness in reducing tobacco use among workers |
| Insufficient evidence was found to determine whether or not worksite-based incentives and competitions alone work to reduce tobacco use among workers | |
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Smoke-free policies to reduce tobacco use among workers [PDF – 264 kB]
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Recommended, based on sufficient evidence of effectiveness in reducing tobacco use among workers |
*A finding of “insufficient evidence” does not mean that the intervention does not work. It means that additional research is needed to determine whether or not the intervention is effective.
Task Force Recommendations:
Recommendations for worksite-based interventions to improve workers health. [PDF – 67 kB] Am J Prev Med 2010;38(2S):232-36.
Evidence reviews:
A systematic review of selected interventions for worksite health promotion: the assessment of health risks with feedback. [PDF – 324 kB] Am J Prev Med 2010;38(2S):237-62.
Worksite-based incentives and competitions to reduce tobacco use: a systematic review. [PDF – 436 kB] Am J Prev Med 2010;38(2S):264-74.
Smoke-free policies to reduce tobacco use: a systematic review. [PDF – 278 kB] Am J Prev Med 2010;38(2S):275-89.
Visit Worksite Health Promotion to learn more about these and other Task Force recommendations and findings specific to the worksite setting. See All Community Guide Topics for information about Community Guide systematic reviews on additional topics.
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