A community based approach to small employer worksite wellness

The Place-Based Small Employer Worksite Wellness Model is an integrative approach to employee health management. Small employers have poor access to worksite wellness because the industry is organized for a larger scale. In the place-based model, employers within a community group together to share and purchase wellness resources and develop community-wide environmental interventions aimed at improving the health and well-being of the employees and community residents. 

The program used a well established downtown development framework (Main Street Maine and Maine Downtown Network programs) to leverage community health improvement in 19 rural towns with a combined population of 180,000.  A suite of worksite wellness tools developed by the State’s health department to inventory, assess and plan the wellness needs of employers was adapted to be user-friendly for small businesses. The survey confirmed that most employees in tiny businesses believed their employers had a role to support behavioral change in the areas of tobacco use (70%) nutrition (80%) and physical activity (65%).  Employers chose from a menu of options to create workplans that averaged 5 strategies apiece for nutrition, physical activity and tobacco use.

Shared results informed community-based work plans to strategically support the very small businesses. For example, while smoking prevalence among employees was low (roughly 10%),  when Main Street businesses individually applied existing state law on clearance from entryways to prevent second-hand exposure, several communities recognized that their downtowns should be virtual smoke-free zones. This very Maine approach blends private and community interests to achieve sustainability in under-resourced rural communities.