As reported by the American Journal of Wellness, “Wellness is the science and art of assisting individuals change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health.
Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change may be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, change behavior, and create environments that support good health practices.
Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.”
Health Promotion Program – Action Steps
The process of building a Wellness Program involves –
• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Decidingthe appropriate wellness programs and interventions to offer
• Advertising and implementing the health promotion programs
• Building in motivational incentives
• Evaluating the impact
• Revising wellness programs based on evaluation outcomes
It may even include developing policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your worksite (like flextime).
Steps to Beginning a Wellness Program
• Conduct an organizational assessment
• Obtain upper-level management support
• Establish a wellness committee
• Get employee input
• Develop goals and goals
• Create and implement wellness program activities
• Choose incentives
• Assess outcomes
One of the ways the government plans to increase the nation’s health is through comprehensive Health Promotion Programs.
As reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, these health promotion programs may help employees live healthier life choices by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs.
In truth, among the objectives of Healthful People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to elevate the proportion of workers that take part in a comprehensive Wellness Program at their worksite to 75%.
