Reports from Johns Hopkins University Advance Knowledge in Health Promotion (Ten Modifiable Health Risk Factors and Employees’ Medical Costs-An Update)

2020 MAY 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Current study results on Health and Medicine - Health Promotion have been published. According to news reporting originating from Bethesda, Maryland, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “To estimate the relationship between employees’ health risks and health-care costs to inform health promotion program design. An observational study of person-level health-care claims and health risk assessment (HRA) data that used regression models to estimate the relationship between 10 modifiable risk factors and subsequent year 1 health-care costs. United States.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Johns Hopkins University, “The sample included active, full-time, adult employees continuously enrolled in employer-sponsored health insurance plans contributing to IBM MarketScan Research Databases who completed an HRA. Study criteria were met by 135 219 employees from 11 employers. Ten modifiable risk factors and individual sociodemographic and health characteristics were included in the models as independent variables. Five settings of health-care costs were outcomes in addition to total expenditures. Analysis: After building the analytic file, we estimated generalized linear models and conducted postestimation bootstrapping. Health-care costs were significantly higher for employees at higher risk for blood glucose, obesity, stress, depression, and physical inactivity (all at P< .0001) than for those at lower risk. Similar cost differentials were found when specific health-care services were examined.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Employers may achieve cost savings in the short run by implementing comprehensive health promotion programs that focus on decreasing multiple health risks.”

For more information on this research see: Ten Modifiable Health Risk Factors and Employees’ Medical Costs-An Update. American Journal of Health Promotion, 2020;():089011712091785. American Journal of Health Promotion can be contacted at: Sage Publications Inc, 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, USA.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting R.Z. Goetzel, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Sch Publ Hlth, Inst Hlth & Prod Studies, 7700 Old Georgetown Rd, Suite 650, Bethesda, MD 20814, United States. Additional authors for this research include R. Benevent, R.M. Henke, M.A. Head and K. Rhee.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117120917850. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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