Organisational and individual outcomes of health promotion strategies – a review of empirical research.

The model of WHP promoted by ENWHP lays great emphasis on the need to target interventions at both the individual and the work environment in its broadest sense.  All too often, WHP interventions are targeted solely at changing the behaviour of the individual.  So, it is refreshing to see a review study that has systematically examined more than 290 studies since 2000 that have looked at a broad range of outcomes.

Undertaken in Poland, the study found that interventions were most often conducted in SMEs.  The types of intervention that were most common were aimed at changing organisational strategy and culture as well as targeting employee behaviour.  Such integrated interventions commonly yielded positive impacts in terms of changed health behaviours, organisational change and less often in terms of savings or reductions in costs as measured by absenteeism, presenteeism, labour turnover and Return on Investment.