Lessons learned from a worksite environmental obesity prevention intervention

The worksite is increasingly being recognized as an important public health setting for introducing environmental obesity prevention interventions. A recent weight management study tested two levels of environmental interventions, moderate and intense, in twelve worksites of a large manufacturing company. Formative research and organizational analysis were used to inform the design of intervention components. A process evaluation was conducted using mixed methods: direct observation, stakeholder surveys, informant interviews, and participant surveys. All sites demonstrated improvements in the physical environment including the creation of walking paths and increased availability of healthy foods in vending machines and cafeterias. Intense intervention sites implemented site goals related to health improvement, leadership training, and a leader recognition program. Process evaluation results show variations in intervention implementation among the sites, which reflect the site differences in intervention valuation first identified in the formative research process. One lesson learned in this project is that all worksites even within the same organization have a unique personality with different perspectives, capabilities, needs and history. Also, implementing interventions that require management support and increase leader perceptions of management support do not necessarily translate into increased employee perception of management support. Another lesson learned is that interventions such as increasing healthy vending and cafeteria choices that appear relatively straightforward require working with and gaining support from vendor(s) who provide these services. In this presentation, we will present findings from the formative research and process evaluation and discuss lessons learned from implementing a multi-site workplace environmental and ecological intervention.