Economic, Health Outcomes Minimally Impacted by Workplace Wellness Programs

Research published by JAMA showed that while workplace wellness programs may improve employees’ health behaviors, there is little to no significant effects on clinical measures of health, health care spending and utilization, absenteeism, tenure, or job performance.

Study authors, Zirui Song, MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, and Katherine Baicker, PhD, of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, IL, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, sought to understand the effects of a multicomponent workplace wellness program on health and economic outcomes.

“In this cluster randomized trial involving 32,974 employees at a large US warehouse retail company, worksites with the wellness program had an 8.3% higher rate of employees who reported engaging in regular exercise and a 13.6% higher rate of employees who reported actively managing their weight,” explained Drs Song and Baicker. However, there were no results supporting that employers’ wellness programs improved employee’s clinical health, reduced  absenteeism, or enhanced job performance.

In 2018, 82% of large firms and 53% of small employers reported investing in workplace wellness programs with the intention of improving employee health and decreasing health care costs. The employee wellness program industry amounts to $8 billion and receives public aid from the Affordable Care Act..

Drs Song and Baicker’s 18-month long trial gathered data via administrative claims, surveys, and biometrics from 160 worksites, focusing on self-reported health and behavior, clinical measures of health via screenings, health care spending and utilizations, and employment outcomes. Twenty of the worksites implemented new wellness programs and were compared to data from the 140 that did not.

The study found sizeable improvements in self-reported health behaviors, such as employees reporting to be exercising more than those not enrolled in the wellness programs.

“These findings stand in contrast with much of the prior literature on workplace wellness programs, which tended to find positive and often large returns on investment through, for example, reductions in absenteeism, and health care spending,” said Drs Song and Baicker. “Employers have increasingly invested in workplace wellness programs to improve employee health and decrease health care costs. However, there is little experimental evidence on the effects of these programs.”—Edan Stanley