The UNC Gillings School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Center for Disease Control and RTI International recently published the 2017 Workplace Health in America survey.

The survey is the first of its kind published since 2004.

It found that nearly half of all workplaces in the nation offer some baseline level of health promotion or wellness programs, which Professor of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health Laura Linnan says is good, but could be better.

“That’s a decent number,” says Linnan. “We would really like to see that number much larger because that is the most generous definition of offering something. It can be anything from providing materials, to some kind of programming, to offering healthy foods in a cafeteria.”

According to the survey, larger companies with up to as many as 500 employees are much more likely to offer health and wellness programs.

Linnan says that while the number of companies offering wellness programs has gone up since the last survey was done, more can be done for employees.

“We have a long way to go to make sure that programs like this, that promote health, are available to employees in our country,” says Linnan.

The survey shows that the benefits for employees working at companies that go above and beyond on health and wellness programming can be exponential.

“We know that employers that offer comprehensive health programming for their employees actually have the best health outcomes, in terms of reducing chronic disease risk factors for their work force,” says Linnan.

The entire study can be seen here.

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