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. 2019 Jan 25;19(1):111.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-019-6405-1.

"Working on Wellness:" protocol for a worksite health promotion capacity-building program for employers

Mari Ryan  1 , Lisa Erck  1 , Leslee McGovern  2 , Kathleen McCabe  2 , Kevin Myers  2 , Suzanne Nobrega  3 , Wenjun Li  4 , Wen-Chieh Lin  5 , Laura Punnett  6
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"Working on Wellness:" protocol for a worksite health promotion capacity-building program for employers

Mari Ryan et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: In the United States, worksite wellness programs are more often offered by larger employers. The Massachusetts Working on Wellness (WoW) program is an innovative, statewide capacity-building model designed to increase the number of smaller employers (200 or fewer workers) adopting health promotion initiatives. This article describes the WoW program design and approaches to recruitment, implementation, and evaluation.

Methods/design: WoW provides employer training, technical assistance and seed funding, utilizing a Wellness Program Development framework based on recognized good practices. For-profit employers with 200 employees or fewer are eligible for and encouraged to apply for a Massachusetts Small Business Wellness Tax Credit. During the phase described in this paper, employer organizations applied to the program and committed to designating a champion responsible for program implementation. Interventions were to include policy and environmental supports, as well as those targeting individual behavior change through raising awareness and education. Supports provided to employers included seed grants for qualifying activities (up to $10,000 with matching required), community linkages, data collection and organization-specific feedback tools, an on-line curriculum supplemented with technical assistance, and an expert webinar series. Data collection at multiple time points, from the initial application through program completion, provides information for evaluation of recruitment, planned and completed activities.

Discussion: This model is grounded in literature on good practices as well as in local knowledge about Massachusetts employers. It does not directly address the influence of working conditions, which can affect both worker participation and health behaviors. Implementation may be less successful with some organizations, such as those with many workers who are part-time or geographically distributed rather than in a centralized physical location. Program evaluation will assess the extent to which WoW achieves its goals. The data are expected to increase understanding of the needs of smaller employers and industries not traditionally implementing employee wellness programs.

Keywords: Intervention planning; Small employers; Worksite health promotion; Worksite wellness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The DPH Institutional Review Board has reviewed the study protocol and the data safety and monitoring plan and determined that this project constitutes Program Evaluation Activities and does not meet the definition of human subject research according to federal Human Subject Protection Rules (45 CFR Part 46); therefore, MDPH IRB oversight is not required. The University of Massachusetts Medical School and University of Massachusetts Lowell IRBs concurred with the above decision.

Informed voluntary consent is obtained from individual employees for their participation in the Needs and Interests surveys. All participation is strictly voluntary; workers are given the opportunity to refuse participation without prejudice to their employment situations. No name or other personal identifiers are collected. All hard copy questionnaires will be maintained in locked file cabinets. All study data in electronic form will be kept on University computers that are password-protected and with secure back-ups.

All investigators have received regular NIH-approved education on the protection of human subject participants in research.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Program Development Cycle
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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