Women who work in manufacturing settings: Factors influencing their participation in worksite health promotion programs

Abstract

T he workplace is an effective channel for disseminating health promotion interventions,’ and it is becoming an increasingly important vehicle for reaching women. In the United States, 54% of women over 18 work outside the home. Bureau of Labor projections indicate that by the year 2005, women will be entering the workforce at a faster rate than men. Manufacturing worksites, in particular, offer an effective means of reaching women who are underserved, undereducated, and from lower income strata. The worksite may play a particularly important role in reaching these underserved women because they may have less access to traditional channels for health care and prevention. However, poor participation in worksite programs is often cited as a major contributor to less than optimal outcomes in worksite-based programs. Little is known about the determinants of participation in worksite health promotion programs. In addition, there is no common definition of “participation,” which adds to the confusion in this literature.2 While it is difficult to make comparisons across data that use different definitions of participation, several recurrent themes exist. Demographic characteristics tend to predict participation in worksite health promotion programs. Younger employees, those with higher education levels, and women are more likely to participate,‘-(j although men are more likely to participate in fitness programs.7,8 Organizational or worksite-level factors that promote individual participation in health promotion programs are less clear. Top management support, willingness to allow attendance on company time, and line supervisor permission to attend programs all seem to play a role in facilitating participation. Although the importance of organizational factors has been acknowledged,2,6,9-” the systematic study of how these factors differentially predict participation by Q 1996 by The Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health Published by Elsevier Science Inc 1049-3867/96/$15.00 SSDI 1049-3867(95)00049-6