Promising and Best Practices in Total Worker Health Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Value in Pursuing Total Worker Health
3 The Value in Pursuing Total Worker Health
Pages 15-26
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From page 15... ...
-- Nancy Lessin Health in the workplace can be viewed as a continuum, beginning with how people work safely in an environment, through how employers begin to promote personal health issues, to how they create an environment that augments worker health and safety and promotes health and well-being. Traditional employee health-related services (e.g., wellness programs, workers' compensation, occupational medicine)
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From page 16... ...
Speakers in this session included Jules Duval, Medical Director of Occupational Health Services, Smithsonian Institution; Kathleen McPhaul, Chief Consultant, Occupational Health, Veterans Health Administration (VHA) ; Peter Wald, Vice President and Enterprise Medical Director, USAA; and Nancy Lessin, Senior Staff for Strategic Initiatives, United Steelworkers–Tony Mazzocchi Center.
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From page 17... ...
She said that with more than 304,000 employees, more than 117,000 of whom are veterans, and, on any given day, perhaps another 100,000 volunteers, students, and contractors on site, the demand for traditional occupational health and safety services was high. 1 The USAA wellness initiative won the C
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From page 18... ...
All the initiative's individual components -- which are as diverse as workers' compensation, disability, safety, corporate communications, corporate real estate, and corporate services -- formerly had difficulty making their voices heard, Wald said, but presenting as a unified group under the wellness council umbrella, has proved more successful. Duval embedded his wellness staff into the Smithsonian's traditional occupational health organization in order to establish a team approach, while nonetheless providing services in an engaged, individualized way.
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From page 19... ...
Initiatives should work to provide employees with education and the tools they need to make better choices for themselves and their families, Wald said, citing as an example of a positive systems approach USAA's 5 percent health insurance premium reduction for employees who participate in wellness programs. Welch noted one situation in which an employer might not want to engage in a Total Worker Health initiative would be if the workplace's safety situation is inadequately addressed.
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From page 20... ...
In the end, if the VHA's Total Worker Health initiative is successful, McPhaul said, that success can be measured by improvements in healthrelated behavior, the psychosocial work environment, and job satisfaction, along with a reduction in occupational injuries and illnesses. Ultimately, she added, these improvements should have a positive impact on the quality of health care veterans receive and the support of facility leadership.
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From page 21... ...
An example McPhaul used was injuries that occur when lifting or repositioning patients, which are more than twice as high among nursing assistants as among other nursing occupations. Measuring Health Risk Since 2006, the Smithsonian's focused wellness program has seen fairly steady declines in the proportions of employees with positive health risks (for the measures being tracked)
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From page 22... ...
By contrast, the vast majority of employees are healthy, with almost 22,000 in the lowest quintile. Wald does the cost analyses for USAA, which may approximate the situations in which private companies find themselves, based on total costs, because he believes that if companies squeeze down on, for example, workers' compensation benefits, those costs pop up elsewhere instead, likely in the health plan.
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From page 23... ...
, which provides research, training, information, and education aimed at helping ameliorate hazardous workplace conditions. Lessin noted that NIOSH's roots are centered around the need to reduce and eliminate hazards and hazardous conditions on the job, and that in her opinion, NIOSH has gone "off course" with Total Worker Health.
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From page 24... ...
Although some of the health risk factors that wellness programs intend to address have a stress component, she added, the programs typically focus on individual behavior change and not on changing systemic factors in the work environment. Lessin noted a growing body of scientific literature documenting the adverse health and safety impacts associated with job stressors and with the way employers
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From page 25... ...
The health benefits of worker wellness programs versus increases in low-wage worker income is untested, she said. Integrating Wellness Lessin reiterated that resources should first be devoted to providing safe and hazard-free workplace conditions as required by law.
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From page 26... ...
26 PROMISING AND BEST PRACTICES IN TOTAL WORKER HEALTH Closing Remarks For the above reasons -- persistent high rates of employee injury, illness, and death (despite underreporting of job injuries and illnesses) ; fundamental and systemic changes in the organization of work itself that have increased job stress; and uncertainty about the benefits of wellness programs in the workplace -- Lessin believes it is timely for NIOSH to go back to the basics before moving into worksite wellness efforts: first, make sure occupational health and safety programs are comprehensive and effective in identifying and eliminating or reducing hazards; second, look at all sides of the debate about wellness and health promotion programs, including controversies and down sides; and third, make sure worker organizations, including unions, have a seat at the table when future NIOSH directions and programs are planned and implemented.
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