Work site wellness centers equate to weight loss and health care savings, Mayo expert says

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- As employees and employers face higher health care costs, work site wellness are becoming increasingly more important to help control the costs of health care and encourage healthy lifestyle behaviors among the workforce, a Mayo Clinic study says.

Research published this month in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine shows that members of Mayo Clinic's employee wellness center, the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center (DAHLC), who regularly participated in wellness activities, experienced significant weight loss and health care costs savings.

"A well-planned comprehensive wellness center can engage and retain members which can ultimately lead to important savings in health care costs and reductions in body mass index (BMI)," says lead researcher Bijan Borah, Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery.

For the study, the researchers used data from 3,199 members who were continuously enrolled in the DAHLC for three years and their attendance was categorized: 1-60, 61-180, 181-360 and greater than 360 visits. Weight loss was defined as moving to a lower BMI category and was based on their BMI at the beginning of the study: normal (BMI END