175425 Take Charge of Your Health: Best Practices and Challenges in Worksite Wellness Programs

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Kurt Konda , Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, Wichita, KS
Lauren Scafe, BA , Public Health Education, Sedgwick County Health Department, Wichita, KS
Elizabeth Ablah, PhD, MPH , Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, Wichita, KS
Kristina Helmer , Administration, Sedgwick County Health Department, Wichita, KS
Becky Pattison Tuttle, MA, BS , Health Education, Sedgwick County Health Department, Wichita, KS
Sonja Armbruster, MAC , Health Protection and Promotion, Sedgwick County Health Department, Wichita, KS
Introduction: Public health is forging new pathways toward health through the development and implementation of worksite wellness initiatives. The Sedgwick County Health Department (SCHD) has developed two worksite wellness initiatives, the Take Charge of Your Health Challenge and the Stepper Challenge.

Methods: The Stepper Challenge prompted participants to track their steps each day for 10 weeks. The Take Charge Challenge goes one step further than the Stepper Challenge and incorporates nutrition into the challenge as well. Both challenges were designed to be low cost, 10-week challenges to motivate individuals to engage in healthier lifestyles. A total of 10 different sites participated in challenges during 2007.

Results: Over 3000 participants (N=3288) initially registered to participate in one of the challenges, 1,752 (53%) participants completing at least one week of a challenge to become classified as an active participant. Compared to the beginning of the challenge, nearly four times as many respondents were at least in the Action Stage of Change for fruit and vegetable consumption at the end of the challenge. Regarding physical activity, the combined percentage of respondents in the Contemplation and Preparation Stages of Change decreased from 57% at the outset of the challenge to barely half of that (30%) following the challenge. Moreover, success can be found in that sites are beginning to repeat their participation.

Conclusions: With limited budgets and multiple sites, the Sedgwick County Health Department has provided the infrastructure and the impetus for workers across Sedgwick County to improve nutritional intake and increase physical activity.

Learning Objectives:
1. Articulate the need for worksite wellness programs. 2. Identify potential best practices and challenges of implementing a large worksite wellness program.

Keywords: Worksite, Wellness

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I run all of the statistics and write all of the reports.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.