Opportunity: Enhance Workplace Wellness programs with Vitamin D

Exclusive: 'Workplace wellness' fails bottom line, waistlines - RAND May 2013: highlights

• Workplace Wellness is a $6 billion industry with 500 vendors - such as Emerick Consulting (Tom Emerick)
• 51% of all big US employers now have Workplace Wellness programs
• Little observable benefit in weight loss, cholesterol reduction, time off from work, health costs, etc.
• Medium to large companies spend $521 per employee per year and get a net savings of only $29
• No statistically significant decreases in cost and use of emergency department and hospital care
• Only 2 % of employers had precise savings estimates

PDF of Rand Study of Workplace Wellness is attached at the bottom of this page

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Diversity of Incentives

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Types of Incentives

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Benefits to employers

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Types of Screening

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Incentives vs behavior change

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Benefits of increasing Vitamin D in employees and their families

SHORT TERM = Quick Return on investment
Reduced Sick Leave - for employee or due to family
Improved on-job productivity - few aches, colds, (difficult to measure)
Reduced pregnancy costs - fewer complications, sick infant,
Reduced time to recover from surgery
LONGER TERM
Employee not lost due to health problems/death (large cost to train a replacement)

Probably start with the "low hanging fruit"
= employees at high risk of being vitamin D deficient
= belongs to at least one of the following

• Dark skins
• Obese
• Seniors
• Living far from equator 68 items
• Pregnant
  especially if Dark skin and pregnant
• Has a health problem strongly assocated with vitamin D deficiency
• Works 2nd or 3rd shift
• Wear concealing clothing
  Concealing clothing resulted in only 8 ng vitamin D – Feb 2011
  Excessive clothes and being indoors results in very low vitamin D levels – Nov 2011
• Long haul truck driver (UVA thru windshield decreases vitamin D levels)
  US truckers die 16 years sooner (UVA-low Vitamin D, obesity, little exercise)

Back-of-the-envelope: 5X Return on Investment per family-year for high-risk empolyees in short term

Cost $100: vitamin D, cofactors, education, progam management
Benefit $500

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See also VitaminDWiki

• Companies and individuals will benefit from more vitamin D
• Vitamin D associated with better self-rated health in male employees – June 2016
• All items in Cost savings due to Vitamin D 158 items
• Disadvantaged get less sun and have poor health in the North– Aug 2011
• More likely to report that productvitiy was effected by health problems if low vitamin D - 2012
• HMOs will save millions of dollars with vitamin D
• All items in category High Risk and Vitamin D 67 items

See also web

• Stroke is the #1 cause of long-term disability Mercola June 2013
  and the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.
  • Overview Stroke and vitamin D in VitaminDWiki
• Providing Workplace Wellness Centers Could Backfire May 2013
  While fitness is a key domain of wellness, wellness is also relationships, spirituality, quality of life, nutrition, resiliency, stress management and financial well-being

Short url = http://is.gd/Dwellness