Making the workplace a more effective site for prevention of noncommunicable diseases in adults

Objective: Efforts to realize the potential of disease prevention in the United States have fallen behind those of peer countries, and workplace disease prevention is a major gap. This article investigates the reasons for this gap.

Methods: Literature review and expert discussions.

Results: Obstacles to effective use of workplace disease prevention include limited leadership and advocacy, poor alignment of financial incentives, limitations in research quality and investment, regulation that does not support evidence-based practice, and a dearth of community-employer partnerships.

Conclusions: We make recommendations to address these obstacles, such as the inclusion of health metrics in corporate reporting, making the workplace a central component of the strategy to combat the effect of noncommunicable diseases, and linking prevention directly benefit businesses' bottom lines.