Health promotion programs sponsored by California employers

Abstract

A survey of California employers with more than 100 employees at one or more sites was undertaken to determine: 1) the nature and extent of health promotion activities; 2) plans for continuation and/or expansion of these activities; 3) plans for initiation of new activities; and 4) the relationship between reported health promotion activities and other characteristics of employers. Of 511 employers with whom interviews were attempted, 49 possible respondents could not be reached and 38 respondents refused to be interviewed, leaving 424 or 83 per cent. Almost one-half of the sites where interviews were conducted had fewer than 200 employees. A total of 332 (78.3 per cent) of employers offered one or more health promotion activities. The most frequent activities provided were accident prevention (64.9 per cent) and CPR (52.8 per cent) with other frequent programs including alcohol/drug abuse (18.6 per cent), mental health counseling (18.4 per cent), stress management (13.0 per cent), fitness (11.6 per cent), hypertension screening (10.1 per cent), and smoking cessation (8.3 per cent). Employers with at least one activity averaged 2.8 activities. The likelihood of having health promotion activities increased with company size. Establishment of new programs appeared to accelerate rapidly in recent years.