Salutogenic Workplace Health Promotion
Abstract
Salutogenic Worksite Health Promotion
Kristoffer Blomqvist, Metropolitan University College, 2013
Objective: The thesis examines if eating the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables per day or having active breaks during the workday have a positive effect on individuals’ self-valued productivity, energy and health. It also investigates what factors that are important to focus on when designing a workplace health promotion (WHP) programme from a salutogenic perspective.
Participants: Four organisations in Sweden and Denmark were chosen and 1569 employees, working in clerical, sales and consulting services, were asked to answer a questionnaire. 1245 employees answered and there answers were used in the data analysis.
Method: The data was collected using SurveyXact and analysed with the statistical program R using non-parametric statistic tests. A literature search was completed followed by a review of the existing literature in the field of workplace health promotion from a salutogenic perspective.
Results: The data showed that people eating the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables per day reports higher self-valued productivity, energy and health level, and that active breaks has a positive effect on self-valued productivity and energy level but a negative effect on self- valued health. Participation, sense of coherence (SOC) and general resistance resources (GRR) seem to be the most important factors to focus on when designing WHP-programmes.
Conclusion: Active breaks and fruit and vegetable consumption have salutary effect on self-valued energy and productivity but health is only positively correlated to fruit and vegetable consumption. More intervention studies are needed to investigate how a salutogenic approach to WHP- programmes should be designed. This thesis contributes with a model visualising the dynamic process between participation, SOC and GRRs in WHP-programmes.
Keywords: Salutogenic workplace health promotion, active breaks, fruit and vegetable consumption.
