Health and Wellness

A New Approach for Wellness Programs

Many work-site wellness programs focus on changing the high-risk lifestyles of those who are overweight, not very active, have high stress, or drink or smoke heavily.

Now, the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center is urging employers to pay more attention to low-risk individuals. The logic is that "it is much easier to help a low-risk person remain low risk than to try to change a high-risk person to low risk." According to the center's latest research, if a company can keep 70 percent or more of its population at low risk, it will be successful overall, even if some high-risk employees never really do much to lower their risk of illness and disease.

On the other hand, the researchers said, employers cannot afford to have many people in the high-risk category. Employers bear the cost in multiple ways: higher risk-based insurance costs, medical claim costs and productivity loss.