Employee Wellness Programs: Supporting Scientific Research and Wellness Statistics

(Adapted from The Health Promotion First Act prepared by David Anderson, Ph.D., StayWell Health  Management)

Worker Lifestyles Impact Worker Health
•    Approximately 40 percent of all deaths in the United States are premature (at least 900,000  deaths each year) and are due to unhealthy lifestyle choices such as tobacco use, poor diet, sedentary  lifestyle, misuse of alcohol and drugs, and accidents. Other contributors to early death include  genetic predisposition (30 percent), social circumstances (15 percent), poor access to quality medical  care (10 percent), and environmental  exposures (5 percent).
•    Unhealthy lifestyle is the primary factor to the six leading causes of death in the United  States – heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases, accidents, and diabetes – which  collectively account for over 70 percent of all deaths.
•    People with healthier lifestyles live an average of 6 to 9 years longer,  postpone disability  by 9 years and compress disability into fewer years at the end of life.
•    The prevalence of obesity among American adults rose to 30 percent in 1999-2000, a 33 percent  increase from a decade earlier,  and the prevalence of diabetes also rose by 33 percent during  approximately the same period (1990 to 1998).
•    About two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, 55 percent do not get enough  physical activity,  26 percent are completely inactive,10 and only 25 percent eat recommended amounts  of fruit and vegetables  If diet/physical activity patterns continue worsening at their current rate,  these behaviors will soon surpass tobacco use as contributors to mortality.
•    Among young people, the prevalence of overweight has more than quadrupled in the past 20 years  to 16 percent,  daily participation in high school physical education classes has dropped from 42  percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 2003,  more than 60 percent eat too much saturated fat, and almost 80  percent do not eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables.
•    Lifestyle diseases disproportionately affect women, ethnic and racial minorities, the poor and  seniors:
•    The prevalence of diabetes among African Americans is about 70 percent higher than  among white Americans, and the prevalence among Hispanics is nearly double that for white Americans.
•    Women comprise more than half of the people who die each year of cardiovascular  disease.
•    Chronic conditions significantly limit daily activity for 35 percent of persons over 65  years of age.

Financial Impact of Lifestyle
•    It is estimated that lifestyle-related chronic diseases account for 70 percent of the nation’s  medical care costs, which translates to over 11 percent of the entire United States gross domestic  product.
•    Two comprehensive scientific reviews identified 83 peer-reviewed studies reporting that people  with unhealthy habits have higher medical costs.
•    Research conservatively estimates that high health risks (high blood cholesterol, high blood  pressure, etc) account for at least 25 percent of total medical costs.
•    Recently published research indicates a direct relationship between modifiable lifestyle risks  and reduced worker productivity, and relevant data suggest that the costs to companies in lost  productivity due to poor employee health may be substantially more than the direct medical and  disability costs.
•    Unhealthy lifestyles often lead to chronic disease, many of which cannot be cured and require  years or decades of expensive treatments. Below are estimated annual costs of selected unhealthy  lifestyles and chronic diseases including obesity,  tobacco use,  hypertension,  diabetes,  stress,   and inactivity.

Employee Wellness Programs Improve Health and Yield Major Savings
•    Comprehensive scientific reviews identified 378 peer-reviewed studies showing that Employee  Wellness Programs improve health knowledge, health behaviors, and underlying health conditions.
•    Research studies have demonstrated that lifestyle modification may often be more effective and  cost-effective than medical intervention in reducing morbidity  and mortality.
•    Several scientific reviews indicate that Employee Wellness Programs reduce medical costs and  absenteeism and produce a positive return on investment.  The most definitive review of financial  impact reported that:
•    18 studies indicated that these Employee Wellness Programs reduce medical costs, and 14  studies indicated that they decrease absenteeism costs.
•    13 studies that calculated benefit/cost ratios all showed the savings from these  Employee Wellness Programs are much greater than their cost, with medical cost savings averaging $3.48  and the absenteeism savings averaging $5.82 per dollar invested in the Employee Wellness Programs.
•    Medical costs are expected to exceed 16 percent of United States gross domestic product (GDP)  in 2005 and to grow at 7.2 percent each year through 2015, when medical expenditures will account for  20 percent of GDP:
•    Per capita medical costs in the United States are the highest in the world and more  than double the median for OECD nations,  yet the United States ranks 26th in terms of healthy life  expectancy.
•    Medicaid is the second largest item in most state budgets, and its portion of the total  budgets is increasing each year.
•    Rising medical costs for United States companies continue to outpace general inflation,  averaging 12 percent per year for the past 10 years.   This trend is causing a tremendous financial  hardship on United States companies.