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An economic evaluation of a twelve week workplace primary prevention program

University of British Columbia

With the majority of Canadians waking hours spent at the workplace place, the financial effects of absenteeism and presenteeism due to chronic disease is increasing. Healthy lifestyle behaviours (such as physical activity, proper nutrition, smoking and alcohol reduction, and mental health management) play in reducing absenteeism and presenteeim rates is crucial. A comprehensive multi-faceted 12 week wellness program (i.e., ACCELERATION) was implemented within a workplace setting to determine its effects on absenteeism and presenteeism. One hour education sessions covered a range of topics from physical activity, proper nutrition, smoking and alcohol cessation to mental health management and stress coping. Weekly one hr exercise sessions conducted with exercise logs to monitor activity/exercise levels at home. The specialized workplace wellness program was designed to examine changes healthy lifestyle behaviours in relation to employee health status, as well as absenteeism and presenteeism costs. An economic evaluation of the ACCELERATION program was created via the distribution of online questionnaires at both baseline and a 3 month follow up. A total of 50 participants, 35 females (43.4 ± 11.5 yr) and 15 males (44.9 ± 10.5 yr) completed the 12 week program. The monetary results from the evaluation reported a reduction in absence days by 54.0% from 1.40 to 0.64 per employee and a cost savings average of $155.79 per employee. Presenteeism was reduced by 17.0% from 29.0% to 12.0% equating to an average cost savings of $420.12 per employee. These results indicate that the ACCELERATION program had a positive effect on employee health costs and is a beneficial health program for the workplace.

Text

2015-11-05

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/55154

Kinesiology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/