Worksite Wellness Program
Our mission is to improve the health of the community. Our mission will help you have the best workforce possible.

SLCHI contracts with area businesses to provide work-site health promotion and wellness services. These include reaching employees with health information through organization-wide approaches and working with employees individually to assist them with making healthy lifestyle choices.

Personal Wellness Profiles(PWP)
The PWP is a confidential survey assessing health risk factors with the intent of helping employees make healthy lifestyle choices. Individual reports are generated for each employee and the employee has the option of meeting with the Preventive Health Coordinator to identify health improvement targets and to develop a personal prevention plan. A group report is generated to assist each company in assessing employee health and potential health improvement targets. PWPs are effective self-evaluation tools and company evaluation tools!

Organizational Approach to Health Education
An organizational approach means reaching all employees with general health education. These services include maintaining educational bulletin boards, providing employees with educational brochures, providing regular article submissions to the company's newsletter, "health tips" paycheck stuffers and email health tips. These are great ways to reach all employees with health information!

Smoking Cessation
The SLCHI staff is trained to provide both individual and group support for employees who want to quit smoking. For those who want to "go it alone", SLCHI will provide the employees with a comprehensive self-help packet. Employees are able to contact SLCHI staff for on-going support during their quit attempt. Informational materials for individuals not ready to commit to quitting are also provided with the goal of assisting them in becoming ready to quit.

Nutrition
SLCHI staff conduct on-site cooking demonstrations for employees. Lunch & Learns, focusing on the Food Guide Pyramid and how to decipher nutritional information on labels, are another option for helping employees to make healthy choices. Presentations on nutrition cover topics such as weight loss and management, reading food labels, the food guide pyramid and creating healthy meals on a tight schedule. SLCHI will work with company food services to increase healthy food choices for employees.

Fitness
SLCHI physical activity presentations cover topics such as simple ways to increase physical activity and how to fit physical activity into a busy schedule. Other topics include weight management, finding time for exercise and preventing back strain. SLCHI will work with you to get your employees moving and more physically active!

Walking Clubs
Walking clubs are extremely popular with area employees. SLCHI staff work closely with participants to set appropriate goals for total steps or miles and provide encouragement and incentives for milestones reached.

Stress Management
Fun and interactive presentations on identifying and managing stressors, and techniques for minimizing stress.

Preventive Health
Blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes screenings are held on-site in cooperation with St. Lawrence County Public Health. SLCHI staff conduct presentations on chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes and on cancer risk reduction. Screenings and education are great opportunities for working toward improving employee wellness.

Research and Supporting Data
The field of worksite health is growing rapidly. Many organizations and universities conduct research to document the return-on-investment (ROI) of a healthy workforce. Below are some sites to assist you in accessing the most recent research.

If you would like more information about evaluation and worksite health promotion, please call Ruth Fishbeck at SLCHI, 267-2740.

University of Michigan Health Management Research Center - www.umich.edu/~hmrc/
Health Enhancement Research Organization - www.the-hero.org/

Benefits of a Worksite Wellness Program
(From Larry Chapman, "An Analysis of the Cost Effectiveness of Worksite Wellness)

Tangible
Reduction in sick leave
Reduced use of health benefits
Reduced Workman's Comp costs
Reduced injury experience
Reduced disability costs

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