Many companies are introducing workplace wellness programs with the hopes of improving employee health and decreasing health care costs. On the surface, these programs may seem beneficial. Employees are encouraged to become healthier, which can decrease their amount of sick days and reduce the company’s overall health care spending. However, a study in JAMA says these programs may not be as advantageous as they sound, at least in the short term.

The study was led by assistant professor of health care policy and medicine, Zirui Song, MD, PhD, with Dean and Emmett Dedmon Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Katherine Baicker, PhD. The authors partnered with a large U.S. retail warehouse company to establish a wellness program at randomly selected worksites. The program offered modules on various topics such as nutrition, physical activity, and stress reduction.

Worksites that were randomly selected to receive the wellness program saw a higher rate of employees who exercised regularly and actively managed their weight than worksites that did not receive a wellness program.

However, at the end of the 18-month study, employees participating in wellness programs did not report better clinical measures of health such as sleep, blood pressure, or cholesterol. Furthermore, their job performance was not better and they did not have lower health care use or spending compared to the control group.

However, Song and Baicker have not lost all hope for workplace wellness programs.

“As we grow to understand how best to encourage healthy behavior, it may be that workplace wellness programs will play an important role in improving health,” Song said in an article by Harvard Medical School. “For now, however, we should remain cautious about our expectations from such interventions," Song noted.

As this was the first peer-reviewed large-scale, multisite randomized controlled trial of a modern workplace wellness program, the study teams says that more research should be done to investigate the benefits of workplace wellness programs as a study period longer than 18-months may yield different results.

Associate professor of health care policy Jose Zubizarreta, PhD and associate professor of health care policy (biostatistics) Sherri Rose, PhD were acknowledged in the study.

This study has been featured in The New York Times, WBUR, Fortune Magazine, Modern Healthcare, CNBC, NPR, HealthDay, UChicago News, U.S. News & World Report, News Wise, Kaiser Health News, People Management, Retail Wire, Los Angeles Times, The Business Journals, San Diego Union-Tribune, Tech Times, MinnPost, The Seattle Times, CFO Magazine, The Straits Times, Health24, Enterprise Echo, CBC, Wosu Public Media, The Grand Haven Tribune, and Harvard Medical School News.