Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m happy to share some of my recent thoughts on trends in the #wellbeingatwork and #wellnesstech space as we move into 2022.  https://medikeeper.com/resources/content-library/employee-wellness-trends-for-2022/

Guidance of great interest to US employers was released by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) recently. The COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) is long-awaited and provides workplaces with binding requirements designed to protect worker health during the Pandemic. Although currently under challenge, employers should be planning forContinue reading “ETS MediKeeper blog link”

Osteoarthritis impacts millions of employees, and assessment, treatment and prevention options are of great importance in workplace health programming. The disease that impacts the protective cartilage of bones and joints can be linked to how people work, and being active and maintaining a healthy weight is quite important for prevention purposes as part of aContinue reading “Mobile App Based Feedback for Those with Hip or Knee Osteoarthritis”

This review study published in the International al Journal of Nursing Studies aimed to estimate the burden of brain health/mental health problems during the COVID19 Pandemic. A total of 38 studies were identified that reported the mental health problems of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The distribution of healthcare workers analyzed in this reviewContinue reading “Global Prevalence of Mental Health Problems in Healthcare Workers”

This interesting study, published in PLoS One, looked at Mental Health/Brain Health needs of frontline workers during the COVID19 pandemic. This is often overlooked, even though participatory workplace health is a very useful strategy. They researchers conducted 25 interviews with frontline workers from a variety of professional groups working in health and social care settingsContinue reading “What mental health/brain health support do frontline health and social care workers want?”

Understanding drivers of absenteeism is very important for employers and their people focused on promoting and protecting workplace health. In this large UK based study, published in the Oxford Academic Occupational Medicine Journal, the researchers uncovered some interesting data in healthcare workers. In over 9362 staff, cost centre sickness absence was significantly positively associated withContinue reading “Factors Associated with Sickness Absence in a Large Healthcare Organization”

I’m a supporter of Gallup’s quality applied research into workplace health issues. This posting is looking at issues of importance during the COVID pandemic, particularly the rust out and burn out we are seeing, not just in healthcare, but in many other industries as well. This article highlights what separates people at risk of burnContinue reading “How to Eliminate Burnout and Retain Top Talent”

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a measure commonly incorporated into wearable tech, and workplace wellbeing strategies, and a good marker to look at in relation to stress in the workplace. It is the time difference between heart beats, and HRV increases during relaxing activities, and decreases during stress, such as purposeful physical activity, or stressfulContinue reading “Heart Rate Variability and Allostatic Load”

Telehealth or Telemedicine appointments offer tremendous value to many stakeholders, based upon the results of this JAMA study in the diabetic population. Based upon review of 521 234 outpatient encounters during the study period, 63 722 met inclusion criteria. Rates of office-only HbA1c laboratory test completion decreased from the 3-year historical prepandemic average of 74.2% to 60.2% duringContinue reading “Telemedicine vs in Office: How did People Manage their Hemoglobin A1C Testing During COVID?”

As an occupational epidemiologist, I have faced some rather strange questions over the past 1.5 years, many of which make me scratch my head attempting to understand the logic. The COVID19 pandemic is forcing us to reconsider how to address workplace health issues, as well as public health issues related to communicable and non-communicable diseases.Continue reading “Examining the interplay among social media news use, misinformation and conspiracy”

Many employers work on their own or with their broker/consultants to manage workplace healthcare costs. A significant driver of these costs are pharmaceuticals. This viewpoint, published in JAMA, highlights the struggle of getting lower cost drugs into the hands of employers and their people.

In this recent article, published in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health. Over a 2-year period, patients at a rural community health center who were screened on-site for multiple behavioral health risk factors and, and if found at risk, were offered no-cost counseling on-site at the health center. The researchers found significant improvement for globalContinue reading “Onsite Screening and Enhanced EAP counselling Improve Health Outcomes”

Let’s stick with the sleep theme this week! Here are some results from a study published in Preventive Medicine in the September 2021 edition that looked at mental health and shift work in over 12,000 workers. The authors found a significant increased risk of depression (OR = 1.13, 95% CI, 1.00–1.27) and poor self-rated healthContinue reading “Mental Health and Shift Work”

Sleep is foundational for your health, and the health of your people. It has a relationship to both mental and physical health, sometimes causational, sometimes a symptom. This recent review published in the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses journal found that more than half of the employee health interventions, especially yoga or mindfulness interventions,Continue reading “Workplace-Based Sleep Health Programs Work for Shift Workers”

Adding to the long list of disruptions the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, beyond excessive morbidity and mortality, is the impact on routine immunizations. Routine vaccines are one of the pillars of our regional and global health systems and any wellbeing strategy. Vaccine preventable diseases, such as COVID-19 save our economies and our healthcare systems extremelyContinue reading “The Pandemic has Caused Immense Routine Immunization Disruption”

I have an upcoming webinar this week with Kelly Sanders, President of Movement for Life on the topic of musculoskeletal health, you can sign up here. Here is a recently published study from the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that among adults who sought care for low back pain (LBP) in aContinue reading “Digital App for Low Back Pain”

In this recent report from Definitive Healthcare, the top telehealth diagnoses for 2020 and year to date 2021 are provided. Some conditions are more suited to telehealth diagnosis, and 80% of primary health care visits do not require the practitioner and the patient to be in same physical space. Five of the top 8 conditionsContinue reading “Top Telehealth Diagnoses – Mental Health is #1”

There have been numerous studies over the years that looked at casual and incidental absenteeism as a predictor of future absence, leave and disability episodes. Employers should have a robust, real time absence management strategy in place as a best practice, this supports early intervention. In this recent study published in Preventive Medicine, Danish healthcareContinue reading “Sickness absence and Presenteeism Predictor Future Work Disability”

In keeping with the theme of the week, obesity in the workplace, some recent research published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has found that obesity, relative to normal weight, raises job absenteeism due to injury or illness by 3.0 days per year, an increase of 128%. Further, annual productivity loss due toContinue reading “Obesity Increases Absenteeism by 3 Days per Year in the US”

Dr. Jaime Pula and I gave a webinar on obesity recently that was well attended. Thank you all! That reminded me of a research project by some colleagues of mine at the Institute for Work and Health published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Personalization is the future of workplace health and productivityContinue reading “Work and Leisure Time Physical Activity and Diabetes Risk”