Review and special articleWorkplace Health Promotion: A Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness
Section snippets
Context
An unhealthy lifestyle is one of the major risk factors for chronic diseases in developed countries.1 Additionally, for employees, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and obesity might lead to negative effects related to work.2 Research has shown that unhealthy employees and those with an unhealthy lifestyle are less productive at work, have decreased work ability, and take more sick days.3, 4, 5, 6, 7
The workplace is considered to be a fruitful setting for public health promotion because of the
Identification of the Studies
Relevant articles were identified by means of a computerized search in the bibliographic databases PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science up until November 2011 with an update for up to June 2012. The search terms were related to (1) workplace; (2) health promotion program; (3) lifestyle: physical activity, nutrition, and smoking; (4) outcome: work ability, productivity, sickness absence, self-perceived health; and (5) RCT. In June 2012, an additional search was performed including the search terms
Evidence Synthesis
Eighteen studies evaluated the effect of a workplace health promotion program (WHPP) either on self-perceived health (n=8)26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33; sickness absence (n=12)28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42; work productivity (n=4)30, 31, 41, 43; or work ability (n=2).32, 33 The study populations ranged in size from 40 to 860, and reflected a wide range of workplace settings (Table 1). The majority of the studies were from northern European countries (n=11/18). The content of
Discussion
The overall effectiveness of WHPPs was small across all work-related outcome measures: self-perceived health, sickness absence, productivity at work, and work ability. This study is the first to show meta-analytically that effectiveness of a workplace health promotion programs depends on the study population, the intervention content, and the methodologic quality of the study. This study also demonstrates the relative importance of these factors for the effectiveness. Studies performed among
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