Community Based Worksite Wellness App Linking Employess to Wellness Resources

ABSTRACT: One-third of Americans spend more than 8 hours per day, five days a week at the workplace. This makes the worksite a critical point to encourage and enable health promoting behaviors, practices, and activities. Effective workplace wellness programs can support and improve the quality of life for American workers. However, over 99% of business are small, as defined by the Small Business Administration as having 500 or fewer employees, where employers are far less likely to offer wellness programs. In fact, less than 7% of small employers offer comprehensive wellness programs. (U.S. Census Bureau, SUSB, CPS; International Trade Administration; Bureau of Labor Statistics, BED; Advocacy-funded research, Small Business GDP: Update 2002-2010, www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/42371) and https://advocacy.sba.gov/2018/09/04/whats-new-infographic-lets-you-see-the-answers-to-the-small-business-top-10/. Smart devices provide opportunities to connect employees (with or without worksite wellness benefits) with wellness and health-supporting products, services, or activities. These services can be provided at no or minimal cost to the employer, minimizing or eliminating one of the key barriers expressed by small employers. Employees benefit from access to discounted products (e.g., meals or sports equipment) or services (e.g., gym membership). Businesses providing these wellness services can also experience economic benefits via increased patronage and improved integration with and exposure to the community. Improved employee health, in turn, can lead to foreseeable economic and social benefits, such as increased productivity, reduced health care costs, reduced absenteeism, reduced short and long-term disability, and reduced workers compensation claims. In short, employer-sponsored wellness activities facilitate healthy lifestyle behaviors and reduce employees’ health risks and costs. In Phase 1, CDC leveraged collaborative processes and expertise in worksite wellness with web-tech design businesses with expertise in both building social networks as well as health and wellness services to develop web platforms and smart device application frameworks. These interfaces enable small and mid-sized businesses interested in designing or enhancing worksite wellness programs to connect with and build a peer network of businesses offering health-related products, services, and resources. They include incentives and other behavioral economic and design strategies that enhance worksite wellness programs without significant financial investment. In Brief, deliverables from phase one included: 1. Proof of concept and market research testing 2. Website and mobile app wireframes 3. Partnerships and identification of needed and available resources. 4. Design of automated and other methods to identify and recruit relevant local businesses and extract relevant information about local resources such as parks and mass transit.