Over 100 representatives from more than 80 local employers gathered Friday for the second annual Chattanooga Worksite Wellness Summit, a forum to learn about worksite wellness programs and their benefits on employee health and businesses' bottom lines.
"Most of the people in our community spend most of their time at work, and understanding that everyone spends a lot of time at work, that's a place that we can reach them to impact their health," said Emily Daily-Fuller, executive director of the American Heart Association, which sponsored the event along with CHI Memorial.
"The idea is basically to bring employers of all sizes together to educate on the importance of how to have a healthy workplace, but also have a little flexibility," Daily-Fuller said.
The event is geared toward anyone with a role in administering corporate wellness strategies, whether the company has 20 or thousands of employees. Attendees varied from those early in the brainstorming process to others with long-standing wellness programs.
Karissa Peyer, assistant professor of health and human performance at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, led afternoon breakout sessions that focused on the importance of communication, motivation and measurement in structuring wellness programs.
"I really stress measuring every point possible, so that you can see how many people read an email or clicked a link and how many actually attended a session," she said. "So even if programs don't work, you can go back and see where along the line you can make improvements."
Lindsay Hyden, associate director of campus recreation at UTC, spoke during a morning lecture about exercise medicine's importance in workplaces, communities and campuses, and emphasized that programs must have strong leadership to succeed.
Several other sessions focused on nutrition, yoga and smoking cessation.
"We've shifted our focus pretty significantly to [disease] prevention," Daily-Fuller said. "At the end of the day, our mission is to create lives free of cardiovascular disease and stroke - it's the number one killer of all Americans."
Contact staff writer Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.