6/29/2013
It has been a very busy and exciting few weeks working on wellness at the Neponset Health Center. I created a survey to assess the employees needs and interest in worksite wellness and posted it on Survey Monkey as well as putting paper copies and a collection box in all the lunch rooms. Four pedometers were raffled as an incentive for completing the survey. Wellness Team members also promoted the survey at their departmental staff meetings. I did a great deal of campaigning urging staff to complete the survey on an individual level as well as participating in a number of staff meetings.
Comments from the staff are really encouraging, for example one woman wrote to me and said “I’ve worked here since 2004 and nobody has ever done anything for us before”. The dedicated email for the Wellness program has allowed employees to post their comments and suggestions for making the worksite healthier.
All the effort paid off and we got a total of 135 surveys returned which represents 62% of the total staff. According to my site supervisor this is the greatest response to any survey administered during her 24 year tenure in the organization. Seventy three surveys were answered on Survey Monkey and 52 on paper. It took some time and effort to aggregate the results which I presented to the Wellness Team at our second team meeting this past Thursday.
Some of highlights from the survey results are:
• 73% of respondents reported engaging in physical activity 3 or fewer times per week, with 24% reported no physical activity.
• 78% of respondents reported eating less than 5 fruits and vegetables daily, the majority, 45% reported eating 2 or fewer fruits and vegetables daily.
• Overwhelming, 73% of respondents indicated that they would participate in worksite wellness activities and 27% answered “maybe” (if they were interested in what was offered). No one responded that they would not participate.
• Weight and stress management were the most cited activities respondents would like to be available as part of a worksite wellness initiative.
• Yoga, stretching, zumba and walking groups were the physical activities in which respondents were most interested.
• The most cited reason for wanting to participate in worksite wellness activities was to feel healthier, meet and get to know more staff and team building.
Based on the survey results the wellness team decided to organize a virtual walk. I am going to plan this event and with the wellness team roll it out over the next few weeks.
During the past few weeks I have compiled a literature review on worksite wellness programs that focused on environmental and policy changes and specifically on studies based in smaller worksites similar to Neponset Health Center. I completed my summer practicum on worksite wellness reviewing a study which tested the effectiveness of a worksite intervention which focused on environmental and policy changes on weight-gain prevention.
Finally I am working on an environmental audit, there are several tools available but I have chosen to use the Checklist of Health Promotion Environments at Worksites (CHEW) tool as it is mentioned frequently in the literature and is one of the tools recommended by CDC. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/hwi/programdesign/environmental_audits.htm