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The History of Employee Wellness Programs

Healthy People 2010 is a government initiative to measure health in the United States for 10 years forward. This program emphasizes 10 leading health indicators (LHI) with physical activity and obesity the top two. Wellness in the workplace has come a long way since the 1960s when a few doctors who followed the trendsetter, Dr. Halbert Dunn, first embraced it.

  1. Identification

    • Dr. Dunn's promotion of "high-level wellness" first took shape in 29 talks he presented encouraging "an integrated method of functioning...within the environment...." This became a book entitled "High-Level Wellness." By the early 1970s, other physicians encouraged wellness concepts, like Lou Robbins and Jack Hall in "How to Practice Prospective Medicine" and Don Ardell in "High-Level Wellness, An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs and Disease." John Travis and Don Ardell conducted workshops in the 1970s promoting wellness, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point began to use computerized lifestyle assessment as part of the entrance requirements for the university.

    History

    • Dr. Bill Hettler provides a history of wellness in the United States on his website. Dr. Hettler developed the Lifestyle Assessment Questionnaire with sections on wellness inventory, health hazard appraisal, a medical alert section and a section for personal growth topics. This questionnaire was available nationwide on the computer. Dr. Hettler reports that by 1980, major corporations were beginning to realize the benefits of a healthy lifestyle on employees and were beginning to start promotion programs. This trend continued through the 1990s.

    Effects

    • The Bureau of Labor Standards reported on 1998 figures showing public and private sector wellness programs for part-time and full-time workers. The National Compensation Survey determined that a wellness program consisted of two or more of the designated programs--smoking cessation, exercise and physical fitness, weight control, nutrition education, hypertension testing, periodic physical examinations, stress management and back care. Nearly 90 percent of the businesses in the United States offered an employee health promotion or wellness program, the University of Michigan reported in a 2007 article appearing in the "Michigan Journal of Public Affairs."

    Significance

    • The Healthy People 2010 initiative has established 10 leading health indicators (LHI). In addition to physical activity and obesity, tobacco and substance abuse and responsible sexual behavior round out the top five. Mental health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunizations and access to health care all reached the top 10 on the LHI list. The concept of workplace wellness developed 50 years ago has become a national campaign.

    Future

    • "The Wall Street Journal" reports that wellness efforts are facing a hurdle with the enactment of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008. "The New York Times" refers to this Act, reporting that employers must now ask fewer questions, as this Act makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of genetic information in health coverage or employment. Efforts that provide wellness initiatives to workers who complete family history surveys and receive health advice for at-risk issues may slow down as a result.

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