The Time to Build a Culture of Health is Now

A significant milestone toward improving the health of America’s workforce was reached on June 18 as the Vitality Institute unveiled a year’s worth of ground-breaking research at a full house event in New York City. In its new public report, the Vitality Institute Commission proposed five actionable recommendations to catalyze a widespread culture of health for working-age Americans.

According to the report, the U.S. could save $217 to $303 billion in annual health care costs if businesses and governments adopt existing evidence-based health promotion and chronic disease and is essential to strengthening America’s economic competitiveness.

The result is a series of recommendations for creating a culture of health that incentivizes and encourages working-age Americans to make healthy choices.  Highlights of the recommendations include:

• Require corporations to integrate health metrics into their annual reporting by 2025
• Secure commitments from more than 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies to include workforce health as part of their organizational strategy by 2020
• Increase federal government funding for prevention science research by at least 10 percent by 2017 and create a federal agency to fund efforts that support health and prevention

These recommendations were discussed and endorsed by a large, diverse group of thought leaders and expert practitioners from academia and business. Forbes, USA TODAY, and Employee Benefit News are among the news outlets across the country that took notice.

To continue the conversation on Tuesday, June 24, Derek Yach, Executive Director of the Vitality Institute and Will Rosenzweig, Vitality Institute Commission Chair and Managing Partner at Physic Ventures, hosted a webinar to outline the actions needed to improve the health of working-age Americans. The event was complimentary and here’s the link to watch the archived presentation .

 While we’re encouraged by the response this week to the Commission’s efforts, there’s much work to be done and we hope you will join us as we act to transform the health of our nation!