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What tools can researchers and corporate managers employ to determine “the most effective ways to change unhealthy lifestyles” in employees? How might they work?

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, is the Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI). He also is a professor of both Medicine at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Wharton School, and Vice Chair of Penn Medicine's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy.

He recently addressed these questions in a presentation: “The Science of Health Economics and Employee Wellness Programs.”

As the intro states: “Over the last five years, an estimated 80 percent of the country's largest corporations have established such programs in an effort to encourage healthier behavior change among their employees. The assumption of these programs is that by assisting employees in smoking cessation, weight loss, regular exercise and healthier eating, the firms can ultimately reduce the cost of health insurance because the employee population will require less medical care.”

Key quotes from Volpp:

• “One of the big issues that I think we really struggle with is the role of health behavior and how that contributes to health outcome… changing peoples health behavior has been, probably, under-prioritized.”
• “Experts have estimated that as much as 40% of premature mortality is actually due to health behavior.”
• “We also know that common diseases like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure kill lots of people, and the role of behavioral factors in them in terms of lifestyle or medication adherence is also really important.”

Penn provides a compelling 5-minute overview of Volpp's presentation: