A meta-analytic review of workplace health intervention programs: What works and who benefits?

Abstract

The purpose of this meta-analysis is to investigate whether the efficacy of WHIP is dependent on the specific health domain targeted, and identify particular study- and individual-level moderators to determine what features of WHIP work, and who benefits the most. Across 36 studies, we found WHIP had some utility in improving health across all domains, with a d = 0.13. Analyses of intervention efficacy broken down by domain revealed that interventions targeting diet were the most efficacious (d = 0.31), with smaller, but significant, improvements also apparent for interventions targeting tobacco use (d = 0.13), and for interventions using biological markers (d = 0.17) or anthropometric measures (d = 0.06). Moderators of this effect included participant’s health risk-level, facilitator characteristics, and the number of domains included: WHIP led to the largest overall change in health when the interventions targeted individuals at higher-risk (d = 0.41), when a professional facilitator administered the intervention (d = 0.27), and when the interventions included outcome measures from four domains (d = 0.37). These results highlight differences in which health domains seem most malleable to positive change, which intervention features augment them, and which participants benefit the most.