A concentration in Health Promotion and Behavior equips you with a comprehensive understanding of the determinants of health and the skills necessary to direct programming efforts at influencing or facilitation health-related behavior, advocating public health policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action and reorienting health services in order to improve quality of life.

Research

Workplace Health Group: Research

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The Workplace Health Group is dedicated to the proposition that healthy people and healthy workplaces are key ingredients of business and organizational success. Through our research, we work to understand the many complex links between work and health.

The WHG includes faculty and graduate students from a number of different disciplines including public health, psychology, management, sociology, human resources, and nutrition and exercise science. Participants in the group share a common interest in the work-health relationship and in maximizing the health and well-being of the workforce. Not only are we interested in using the workplace as a setting for disease and injury prevention programming, we are also committed to making organizations healthier and safer places in which to work.

Current Projects

Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR)

An adapted version of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) is being tested in a worksite setting. DPP is a 24-week weight management program, demonstrated effective in clinical trials and one worksite, aimed at reducing caloric intake and increasing energy expenditure. This project is an example of translation of research to practice examining how a set of intervention strategies can be used to integrate an evidence-based intervention within a specific setting, without the tightly controlled research infrastructure.

The project involves over 2,000 maintenance shop employees at UPRR. The maintenance shops (sites) are randomly assigned as a treatment or control group. The treatment group receives an adapted version of the DPP program supported by strategies designed to bolster the work and home environmental supports. Body mass index, healthy eating behaviors, and physical activity levels are measured before and after the program and at six-months post program. In addition, changes in the work and home environmental supports and organizational indicators measuring workplace improvement and financial outcomes are analyzed. This project is funded by the Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. For more information contact Dr. Mark Wilson (mwilson@uga.edu).

Lighten Up

Lighten Up emphasizes the use of environmental modifications and supports to help people manage their diet and weight. The aim is to reduce the prevalence of obesity in the workplace and achieve a positive return on investment for the company.

The Dow Chemical Company Manufacturing sites throughout the United States, employing more than 6,000 workers, are serving as the study sites. Sites are randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups or a control group. The treatment group employs inexpensive environmental changes and/or engage senior managers in the development of a work site culture that is supportive of the health improvement of employees. Health risk, health claims, absenteeism and productivity data of the participants are being analyzed to determine program impacts. This project is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). For more information about Lighten Up contact Heather Bowen (hmbowen@uga.edu).

Risky Behaviors of Working Teens

This study focuses on a different consequence of adolescent employment – not occupational health issues, but rather on lifelong health behaviors, such as substance use, nutrition and mental health issues. It addresses the large numbers of adolescents who are working, and therefore are being subjected to a myriad of outside influences, which may induce life-altering and even life-threatening changes to these young peoples’ behaviors. The goals of the study are to understand the prevalence of risky behaviors (substance use, disposable income, commitment to graduate from high school, mental health, violence, and physical activity) in working adolescents and the relationship between adolescence who work and risk behaviors. Such an understanding can facilitate the development of workplace interventions, which may be the last and best chance to intervene in behalf of these difficult to reach individuals before they enter adulthood. For more information contact Dr. Jessica Muilenburg (jlm@uga.edu).

Strategic Initiative for Firefighters

The purpose of this project is to develop a strategic research plan for examining the role of safety climate and culture in injuries and deaths among firefighters. Primary, but not exclusive, emphasis will be placed on line-of-duty injuries and deaths of structural firefighters.

The following steps will be taken in developing the strategic plan: 1) a review of the occupational safety and health (OSH) literature pertinent to firefighters; 2) a review of research on safety climate/culture and its applicability to firefighter and other emergency response personnel; and 3) a research agenda describing the nature, types, and sequencing of research necessary to assess the importance of safety climate/culture in firefighter injuries and deaths.

We anticipate developing a research agenda that will feature a coordinated series of qualitative and quantitative studies beginning with key informant interviews, proceeding through focus group studies, archival data analyses, instrument development activities, and the development and execution of a large scale survey study that ideally would involve a nationally representative sample of firefighters. Execution of the research agenda should produce a testable model of factors influencing safety performance in firefighting, a valid and reliable measure of safety climate/culture in firefighting, and an empirical assessment of the relative importance of safety climate/culture in firefighting.

Move to Improve

WAGES, Workplace Activity for Employee Goal Setting is funded by the CDC under the Public Health Research: Health Protection Research Initiative. The primary aim of the project is to observe among employees the effects of a 12-week intervention based on personal goal setting and organizational action on moderate to vigorous physical activity, employee ratings of productivity, health-related quality of life, and workplace morale.

WAGES is being implemented as a part of the Building Better Health program for employees of The Home Depot, Inc. Employees of 16 Home Depot locations participated in the study. Sites were randomly assigned into 8 treatment and 8 control groups.

Associates in the treatment group were asked to complete at least 15 (10-minute) blocks of physical activity a week and/or 10,000 steps a day. The team goal was to have 75% or more of the team members meet the aforementioned goals 6 out of the 12 weeks. Both phases of the intervention came to culmination in September. We are currently collecting the final data and completing the process evaluation. Now in year two we have begun the data analysis, which will carry the project through year three when the focus will be on manuscript development. For more information about Move to Improve contact principle investigator Rod Dishman (rdishman@uga.edu)

Explaining Fruit and Vegetable Intake with a Consumer Marketing Tool

This research addresses the recommendations made by NCI’s 5-A-Day 10-year evaluation team:

1. Rethink the 5-A-Day message to prevent wear-out and to enhance its attractiveness,
2. Rethink channel usage strategies with a focus on new media and tailored communications
3. Develop strategies to research underserved populations.

In response to these recommendations, this research will assess how theory of planned behavior (TPB) constructs vary by VALS™ segment in a structural equation model.

VALS™ is a marketing tool used extensively in private industry to segment communication audiences by lifestyle. VALS™ yields audience groups that behave differently and that hold different attitudes and social perceptions. Integrating the VALS™ audience segmentation typology with TPB constructs should facilitate the development of more precise and targeted interventions and communication campaigns that tout the cancer-fighting effects of eating the proper amount of fruit and vegetables.

The specific aims of this research include: (1) To identify whether adults (males and female ages 18 to 74) classified in different VALS™ groups hold different attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions for eating fruit and vegetables. (2) To determine whether the effects of theory of planned behavior constructs – attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention – have different amounts of influence on adherence to the 5-A-Day fruit and vegetable consumption guidelines across audience segments.

A cross-sectional survey of N=1,600 responses will be collected via telephone and computer-aided interviewing methods. Specifically, n=200 responses will be collected via a random dialing process. ANOVA and structural equation models will be used to test specific hypotheses generated from the research aims outlined above.

This project is funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). For more information about the Fruit and Vegetable Intake Program please contact Dave Dejoy, (dmdejoy@uga.edu)

Completed Projects

Healthy Work Organization: Health and Behavioral Outcomes

Using data collected on over 3,000 employees in the retail sector, this project is investigating the relationship between work organization factors and employee health and health risk outcomes. Three categories of work organization factors are included: job design, organizational climate, and job future.

Outcome measures include general health status, perceived work stress, somatic symptoms, depression, anger, psychological work adjustment, CVD risk factors, participation in health screenings, smoking, and alcohol consumption. This project is funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For more information about the Healthy Work Organization project contact Dave DeJoy (dmdejoy@uga.edu) or Bob Vandenberg (rvandenb@uga.edu)

Building Better Health

The WHG provides ongoing technical assistance to Home Depot's Building Better Health program related to strategic planning, data management, and evaluation of its multiple health promotion programs. For more information, contact Mark Wilson (mwilson@uga.edu)

More Information

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