Some studies have found good financial returns in the first year, while others that looked at outcomes over time have not found that wellness programs result in better health or reduced spending. (Photo: Shutterstock)
A three-year study of workplace wellness programs found a higher share of employees reporting better health behaviors at the end of the study—however, no significant improvements were found in health measures, medical or drug spending, or job outcomes such as absenteeism or performance.
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The study from Harvard Medical School researchers Zirui Song and Katherine Baicker adds to the mixed findings on employee wellness programs—some studies have found good financial returns in the first year, other studies that looked at outcomes over time have not found that wellness programs result in better health or reduced health care spending.
The study parameters
The report noted that the use of workplace wellness programs has been growing in the U.S., and that the use of personal health assessments and biometric screening has seen the most growth.
For this study, researchers looked at employees from a retail warehouse company, one that has approximately 26,000 workers across 200 sites in the eastern U.S. Employee participants were classified as middle- and lower-income workers, and full-time workers made up about 50% of the study population.
The three-year, randomized study gathered self-reported health data, clinical data, and claims data from the third-party administrator (Cigna Health) that oversaw the company's self-funded health plan.
The wellness programs consisted of 12 "nodules" that focused on areas such as nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction. Company leadership promoted the program, and some financial incentives, such as gift cards, were provided, with an average value of $300 per employee.
Better reported behaviors, but…
The overall findings suggest that the return-on-investment for these wellness programs was limited. The good news was that the wellness programs led to better self-reported health behaviors, which the researchers said was notable in the area of active weight management.
"These improvements were substantial in magnitude, with about an 11% increase in the share of employees who reported actively managing their weight in treatment relative to control sites, or about an 18% increase among those participating in the wellness program," the report said.
However, when the researchers looked at other measurables, there were few signs that the wellness programs had improved health or saved money. "The program did not produce measurably better health, savings on medical or prescription drug spending, or improved absenteeism or job performance (although some heterogeneous effects by age, sex, and worker type were found)," the authors wrote. "Thus, behavior change, as measured through self-reports, may be easier to affect or sustain than durable health or employment outcomes. Although it is difficult to price the unobserved benefits of behavior change, we did not observe a financial return on investment in the employment and claims measures we examined."
The report concluded that this lack of measurables suggests that, if other research continues to show similar findings, employers should temper their expectations regarding improvements in employee health outcomes or financial returns on investment from wellness programs that last up to three years.
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