Making the workplace a more effective site for prevention of noncommunicable diseases in adults.
OBJECTIVE
Efforts to realize the potential of disease prevention in the United States have fallen behind those of peer countries, and workplace disease prevention is a major gap. This article investigates the reasons for this gap.


METHODS
Literature review and expert discussions.


RESULTS
Obstacles to effective use of workplace disease prevention include limited leadership and advocacy, poor alignment of financial incentives, limitations in research quality and investment, regulation that does not support evidence-based practice, and a dearth of community-employer partnerships.


CONCLUSIONS
We make recommendations to address these obstacles, such as the inclusion of health metrics in corporate reporting, making the workplace a central component of the strategy to combat the effect of noncommunicable diseases, and linking prevention directly benefit businesses' bottom lines.
From The Vitality Institute (Drs Tryon and Yach), New York, NY; The Vitality Group (Mr Bolnick), Chicago, Ill.; Department of Public Health (Ms Pomeranz), Temple University, Philadelphia, PA; and Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health (Dr Pronk), Boston, Mass.
Katherine
K
Tryon
Howard
H
Bolnick
Jennifer L
JL
Pomeranz
Nicolaas
N
Pronk
Derek
D
Yach
D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D055818:Public-Private Sector Partnerships; D014481:United States; D017132:Workplace