Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Nov-Dec;136(6):671-684.
doi: 10.1177/0033354920976557. Epub 2021 Feb 4.

A Scoping Review of Economic Evaluations of Workplace Wellness Programs

Nilay Unsal  1 , GracieLee Weaver  2 , Jeremy Bray  3 , Daniel Bibeau  4
Affiliations

A Scoping Review of Economic Evaluations of Workplace Wellness Programs

Nilay Unsal et al. Public Health Rep. 2021 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Objective: Debates about the effectiveness of workplace wellness programs (WWPs) call for a review of the evidence for return on investment (ROI) of WWPs. We examined literature on the heterogeneity in methods used in the ROI of WWPs to show how this heterogeneity may affect conclusions and inferences about ROI.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review using systematic review methods and adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We reviewed PubMed, EconLit, Proquest Central, and Scopus databases for published articles. We included articles that (1) were published before December 20, 2019, when our last search was conducted, and (2) met our inclusion criteria that were based on target population, target intervention, evaluation method, and ROI as the main outcome.

Results: We identified 47 peer-reviewed articles from the selected databases that met our inclusion criteria. We explored the effect of study characteristics on ROI estimates. Thirty-one articles had ROI measures. Studies with costs of presenteeism had the lowest ROI estimates compared with other cost combinations associated with health care and absenteeism. Studies with components of disease management produced higher ROI than programs with components of wellness. We found a positive relationship between ROI and program length and a negative relationship between ROI and conflict of interest. Evaluations in small companies (≤500 employees) were associated with lower ROI estimates than evaluations in large companies (>500 employees). Studies with lower reporting quality scores, including studies that were missing information on statistical inference, had lower ROI estimates. Higher methodologic quality was associated with lower ROI estimates.

Conclusion: This review provides recommendations that can improve the methodologic quality of studies to validate the ROI and public health effects of WWPs.

Keywords: return on investment; systematic review; workplace wellness; workplace wellness programs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure
Figure
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flow chart showing the process for article inclusion in a scoping review of articles that evaluated workplace wellness programs, included measures of return on investment, and were published before December 20, 2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. De Greef M., Van den Broek K. Making the Case for Workplace Health Promotion: Analysis of the Effects of WHP. European Network for Workplace Health Promotion; 2004.
    1. Spence GB. Workplace wellbeing programs: if you build it they may NOT come…because it’s not what they really need! Int J Wellbeing. 2015;5(2):109-124.10.5502/ijw.v5i2.7 - DOI
    1. Jones SRG. Was there a Hawthorne effect? Am J Sociol. 1992;98(3):451-468.10.1086/230046 - DOI
    1. Meenan RT., Vogt TM., Williams AE., Stevens VJ., Albright CL., Nigg C. Economic evaluation of a worksite obesity prevention and intervention trial among hotel workers in Hawaii. J Occup Environ Med. 2010;52(suppl 1):S8-S13.10.1097/JOM.0b013e3181c81af9 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nyman JA., Abraham JM., Jeffery MM., Barleen NA. The effectiveness of a health promotion program after 3 years: evidence from the University of Minnesota. Med Care. 2012;50(9):772-778.10.1097/MLR.0b013e31825a8b1f - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources