Thriving to make workplace health promotion a success: Riverside County's Thrive Across America Challenge

Introduction:  Research supports the notion that well-designed workplace health promotion can improve employee health and well-being as well as reduce chronic disease.  Employee health is a unique opportunity for health promotion efforts as employees are a captive audience, spending their most productive hours in the workplace.  This study aims to explore the effects of a countywide effort to support a healthy workplace through fostering engagement in physical activity.

Methods:  Over 17,000 county employees across more than 40 departments and agencies were invited to participate in the Thrive Across America challenge, an online program that encourages physical activity.  Participants were asked to log their minutes of physical activity daily.  Pre and post participation data on exercise frequency as well as participant stage of behavioral change also was gathered.  The initial goal was to obtain participation of at least 2,000 employees.

Results:  Surpassing original goals and expectations, 3,846 registered for the challenge.  Of those, 65% participated on one of 325 teams.  Before the challenge, 16.8% of participants reported being physically active more than 5 days each week.  At the end of the challenge, that percentage increased to 44%.  The percent of participants that reported spending, on average, 30 minutes or more exercising increased from 57% to 74.5%.  Additionally, 67% of participants experienced an increase in their physical activity over their course of the challenge.

Discussion:  Workplace health promotion can be an important tool in enhancing employee health and increasing productivity.  Efforts that include peer encouragement and managerial support can be particularly effective.