Archive for category Reporting
ShapeUp Shapes Up the Employee Wellness Debate
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Reporting, ShapeUp, Uncategorized on March 3, 2012
I’m a fan of ShapeUp (formerly Shape Up the Nation), the employee wellness vendor that, in its own words, “combines social networking, social gaming, and financial incentives to make wellness fun, drive behavior change, and save companies money.”
While it seems ShapeUp has inched toward conformity by adopting (and adapting) a few conventional pieces of the employee wellness puzzle — like health risk appraisals and coaching — I still credit them with being a prominent vendor that challenges the status quo. And, in my humble opinion, few industries Read the rest of this entry »
CDC: Most Americans Who Have Smoked…Have Quit
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Reporting, Uncategorized on November 10, 2011
“More than two-thirds of American smokers say they want to quit but only a fraction actually do,” reports today’s Wall Street Journal. This paints a dreary picture of a smoker’s chances of successfully quitting tobacco. But it’s a picture that is not entirely accurate.
Of course, quitting tobacco (not just cigarettes, but chew and snuff) is one of the hardest things you can do. But let’s not overlook the fact that most people in the US who have ever smoked…have quit! ”Only a fraction actually do?” Sure. The fraction is one half.
The WSJ reported their article based on the newly released MMWR from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which included a summary of tobacco prevalences and quit data for 2001 - 2010. The third sentence of the report reads, Read the rest of this entry »
Social Network or House of Cards? Wellness Professionals Need to Know
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Reporting, Uncategorized on August 13, 2011
Have you been enjoying the recent brouhaha about social networks and health, or “social contagion”? In case you missed it, statisticians and other scientists are in a flap over the analytical methods of Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, authors of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (in which the summarize their research which, they say, shows that components of health such as obesity, tobacco cessation, and happiness spread through networks of “friends”). Carol Harnett did a fine job of deconstructing both sides of the issue in layperson’s terms on Fran Melmed’s blog. Read it here.
Why should those of us in employee wellness care about this? Several reasons, including Read the rest of this entry »
Recap: Achieving an ROI for Wellness & Sustainable Behavior Change
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Reporting, ROI on July 29, 2010
I don’t want to overkill the topic of wellness return-on-investment, the topic of my last two posts. But, while it’s still fresh, I thought I’d offer a quick recap of the conference, Achieving an ROI for Wellness & Sustainable Behavior Change, hosted in Washington, DC on July 27 and 28. I’m not going to give you a play-by-play, just mention a few highlights and my perception of general trends.
The conference was opened by a thought-provoking presentation by Ian Ayres. Ayres is a well-known lawyer and economist, and co-founder of the the website StickK (a conference sponsor). StickK, immortalized in the popular behavioral economics manifesto Nudge, is a web-based embodiment of behavioral economics. Users create “Commitment Contracts” to stay Read the rest of this entry »
AARP Public Policy Institute Roundtable: Using Financial Incentives to Promote Healthy Behaviors
Posted by Bob M. in Employee Wellness Programs, Reporting, Uncategorized on May 17, 2010
I was honored to be invited by AARP to to their Public Policy Institute Innovation Roundtable on Using Financial Incentives to Promote Healthy Behaviors, held April 29 at the AARP headquarters in Washington, DC. The all-day Roundtable included approximately 25 experts representing a wide variety of specialties, including representatives from non-profit health advocacy agencies, researchers, an ethicist, a philosopher, employers, vendors, consultants, lawyers, and a health plan. If you’ve read any wellness research or attended wellness conferences in recent years, you certainly would have recognized many of the people seated around the table.
The objectives of the Roundtable were Read the rest of this entry »
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Zeroing in on Weight Loss May Be a Bad Idea — The ShapeUp Survey, Pt 3
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Reporting, ROI, ShapeUp, Uncategorized on March 8, 2012
In one of ShapeUp’s initial posts following the release of the results of its Annual Survey Large Employer Wellness Survey, they emphasized that obesity is a key driver of employer health care costs, and the survey results found that employers view addressing obesity as an important goal.
ShapeUp concluded:
Anyone?
In fact, employers who invest in weight management are likely to be doing so to excess. Read the rest of this entry »
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