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I need info on the trends of adoption of wellness programs by companies
Hello! Thank you for your question on trends on the adoption of wellness programs by companies. The short answer is that over 70% of companies in the United States currently offered a wellness program in 2015. This is up from 58% in 2008, when the Society for Human Resource Management conducted its first study. Below you will find a deep dive of my research findings, as well as how I came to this conclusion. I hope that this helps you.
METHODOLOGY
I extensively searched academic databases, corporate websites, industry reports and regulatory filings to find you the trends of adoption of wellness programs by companies. However, there was limited information available regarding the summarized adoption rates of wellness and even smoking cessation programs overtime. It seems like almost all research looks at their effectiveness rather than growing prevalence. However, Forbes published the results of two research studies conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management in the year of 2008 and 2015. When I went to the website to look up other years, the information was unfortunately behind a paywall. My results are as follows:
FINDINGS
Forbes reported that over 70% of companies in the United States currently offered a wellness program in 2015. This is up from 58% in 2008, when the Society for Human Resource Management conducted its first study. The study estimated that this would increase an additional 8% in the following 12 months. We can thus assume that 78% of companies offered wellness programs in 2016. The study also reported that "five-year trend data shows wellness programs are the only preventive health and wellness benefit offered by more employers in 2015 than in both 2014 and 2011."
The study also reported that "other preventive health and wellness benefits that saw increases over the five-year period included smoking cessation programs (44%, up from 36% in 2011), preventive programs targeting employees with chronic conditions (40%, up from 33% in 2011) and health care premium discounts for getting annual health risk assessments (25%, up from 14% in 2011)." However, none of the wellness programs experienced growth from 2014-2015.
According to a RAND Corporation study, "for every $1 invested in overall wellness efforts created a return on investment of $1.50 in 2013. For programs targeting chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, the ROI increased to $3.80. According to Forbes, every smoker cost their employer an additional $5,816 per year.
POSSIBLE CONTINUED RESEARCH
Upon researching this topic, I found that additional studies from the Society for Human Resource Management were available. These may be extremely beneficial to you in this area of research.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, I have provided you with my research findings on the trends on adoption of wellness programs, by companies. Over 70% of companies in the United States currently offered a wellness program in 2015. This is up from 58% in 2008, when the Society for Human Resource Management conducted its first study.
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