Volume 27, Issue 2: April, 2000

Abstract

RESULTS OF EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT IN PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE TREATWELL 5-A-DAY WORK-SITE STUDY

Mary K. Hunt, MPH, RD, FADA Ruth Lederman, MPH Steven Potter, MS Anne Stoddard, ScD Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH

When work-site health promotion programs incorporate theories of community organization, it is likely that employee ownership and participation are enhanced. This article reports quantitative indicators of involvement of Employee Advisory Board (EAB) members in the Treatwell 5-a-Day work-site study and examines relationships between EAB member time spent on project activities and work-site size, with indicators of the extent of implementation and variables associated with behavior change and work-site support. The results reported here indicate that a greater number of EAB member hours spent on program activities was associated with a greater number of events implemented. Smaller work-site size was associated with greater employee awareness of the program and greater participation in project activities as reported on the employee survey. These results suggest that the number of hours employee representatives devote to project activities might be an important consideration in planning employee involvement in work-site health promotion programming.