Health and Wellness Programs : What is a Health Promotion Program?
According to the American Journal of Wellness, “Wellness is the science and art of helping people 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 can 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.”
Wellness Program – Action Steps
The process of building a Health Promotion Program involves –
Identifying the current health status of your staff
Determiningthe appropriate programs and interventions to offer
Promoting and implementing the programs
Building in motivational incentives
Evaluating the impact
Revising programs based on analysis outcomes
It could even include developing policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your worksite (like flextime).
Steps to Starting a Health Promotion Program
Conduct an organizational assessment
Get management support
Start a wellness committee
Obtain worker input
Create goals and goals
Create and implement program activities
Select incentives
Measure outcomes
Among the ways the government plans to increase the nation’s health is through extensive Wellness Programs.
As reported by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs might help workers live healthier lifestyles by building supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs.
Truly, among the goals of Healthy Individuals 2010, a set of health goals for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to raise the proportion of personnel that take part in a comprehensive Health Promotion Program at their worksite to 75 percent.