The Impact of Covid-19 on Various Offerings Within a Worksite Wellness Program.

Abstract

Worksite wellness programs are popular employer offerings as of the last few decades. The COVID-19 pandemic caused major shifts in behavior since these programs were implemented. The purpose of this study was to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected participation in a worksite wellness program. This study is a secondary analysis of a university worksite wellness program that compared monthly participation in 2019 (pre-pandemic) versus 2020 (after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic). The main outcome measures included participation within two offerings (single-visit or ongoing programming) for each of the three arms (MoveWell, EatWell, and BeWell) of the worksite wellness program. Statistical analyses included the Shapiro-Wilk test for data normality, paired t-tests for year-to-year differences in overall participation, and Wald confidence intervals for year-to-year differences in specific offerings. Overall, participation in the worksite wellness program decreased during the pandemic when compared with participation of the previous year (p = .016). Participation in the BeWell and EatWell offerings had no significant change from 2019 to 2020. Among the MoveWell offerings, the group fitness classes (ongoing programming) were the only worksite wellness offering that showed decreased participation. Predictably, overall participation in a worksite wellness program decreased while employees were not physically in their workplace. However, it is noteworthy during the pandemic that employees were still participating in EatWell and BeWell programming such that participation was not significantly different from 2019. The results from this study could potentially be used to inform worksite wellness programming in future pandemics or other public health emergencies.