It used to be called National Employee Health & Fitness Day. But since it takes more than a day for us to develop healthy habits, perhaps it’s not surprising that we’re now celebrating “Global Employee Health & Fitness Month.”¹

Nowadays global means more than world-wide—what’s also expanded is the definition of “employee health.” The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) now talks in terms of “Total Worker Health”™ (TWH).²

TWH™ employers aren’t abandoning their traditional focus on occupational safety but merging it with workers’ personal wellness. So an employer who works to eliminate on-the-job hazards might also adopt a policy on tobacco use, because the costs of both workplace injuries and employees’ health behaviors have become clear.

Total Worker Health™ is a concept Dr. James Merchant, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa (UI), is familiar with. “‘Integrated’ was the word we used in the 2005 Institute of Medicine report³,” he says, “meaning the sum of components intended to make workers healthier, safer, more productive and more resilient.”

Dr. Merchant has been interested in worker health and safety for many years. He founded and has served as medical director of the WORKSAFE IOWA Occupational Medicine Associates Network⁴, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The network of community-based hospital occupational health clinics reflects the Total Worker Health™ emphasis in the array of medical services and health and wellness programs offered to Iowa employers and workers.

More recently, Dr. Merchant established the UI Healthier Workforce Center of Excellence (HWCE) in 2006. He says, “We want to be a resource on TWH™ programs, especially for small employers,” pointing out that businesses which employ less than 50 people constitute 95% of employers in Iowa.

The HWCE website⁵ provides numerous links, as well as recorded seminars and even health tutorials. Employers can also subscribe to a monthly “Healthier Workforce Bulletin” on TWH™ strategies.

So what will you do for Global Employee Health & Fitness Month? Walk to work? Start exercise at lunchtime? Maybe serve healthy food at your meetings? ⁶

¹  Global Employee Health & Fitness Month (National Association for Health & Fitness, ACTIVE Life)
² NIOSH
³ Integrating Employee Health: A Model Program for NASA (IOM, 2005)
⁴ WORKSAFE IOWA Associates Network
⁵ Healthier Workforce Center for Excellence
⁶ Guidelines for Healthy Meetings