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The John and Janice Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology at Ball State University offers interdisciplinary educational programs that give you the opportunity to find real-world solutions to real-world problems. We engage students through immersive learning opportunities – melding content, skills, societal need, and your interests.

We offer educational experiences that support students as they design, implement, and evaluate wellness programs for individuals of all ages. Our programs take you within community agencies, health care facilities, businesses, and school corporations, where your ideas can help change lives. Our faculty and student research focuses on multidimensional approaches to health and well-being for individuals, families, and communities and on innovative techniques for achieving higher levels of wellness throughout individual lifespans.

We are part of College of the Applied Sciences and Technology, Ball State’s second largest academic college.

Would you like to participate in a national project to improve workplace health and wellness programs nationwide? If so, please read the following, and please send us a response, as indicated below. Thanks! The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued a Request for Proposals for a competitive contract to support the development of comprehensive health and wellness programs in workplaces throughout the United States. The project will recruit 10 to 15 workplaces in each of 7 regions, for a total of 70 to 105 workplaces nationally. Workplaces will be of all sizes, including small (<100), medium (101-250), and large (250+).

Link to Survey

Each workplace will receive strong support from the contract to implement and maintain a comprehensive health and wellness program that will focus especially on improving nutrition, physical activity, and smoking cessation among its workers. The project will run for 2 years. Proposals must be submitted to CDC by August 8, 2011. The announcement for the project may be found at: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=29b2fa3edcf914d6e3b66ffa7e0b5fba&tab=core&_cview=1

Alternately, you may search Google: FEDBIZOPS CDC Comprehensive Health Programs to Address Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Tobacco Use in the Workplace Solicitation Number: 2011-N-13420.

A group of highly competent and well-known organizations are now working together to develop a proposal in response to this announcement. This interdisciplinary group includes Development Services Group, Inc. (DSG); RTI International; Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE); the Prevention Institute; Organizational Wellness and Learning Systems (OWLS); ISA Associates; and HPCareer.Net; among others. Our highly collaborative approach will ensure that the needs and preferences of each workplace are accurately identified and taken into account.

If you are interested in participating, we will follow up to let you know the status of our proposal. If we are successful in obtaining the contract, and you and your organization are selected for participation, we would be working closely with you and your workplace. This project will help demonstrate how health and wellness programs can be implemented more widely and more effectively, so that the health, safety, and productivity of workers can be improved nationwide…AND…so businesses can save money!

** WE NEED YOUR HELP **

We appreciate your sending out this survey link to others that you may know (e.g., clients, business owners). They may or may not be directly involved in the field of workplace health promotion. THANK YOU! *****

PLEASE NOTE. This survey is not a direct solicitation; your business or a client’s business is being asked to participate in this survey at this time ONLY for informational purposes.   (The survey is brief and will only take 5-10 minutes to complete.)

Please provide the information requested under A and B on the following pages, especially where there is an asterisk *.

PLEASE RESPOND BY JULY 29th

A review of lists for best practices in workplace health promotion clearly reveals how excellence requires creating a “WE”. The “WE” message may not be obvious from looking at scorecards, bullet points, or key action steps, but it is there. It’s a “can’t see the forest for the trees.” For example, a classic benchmarking study of 43 employers lists the importance of having a solid and diverse wellness team (no silos), constant communication, and… the team was having fun! [1] The scorecard of the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) also emphasizes communication, providing program access to ALL workers, the use of champions or ambassadors, and engagement methods that are sensitive to diverse needs [2]. Of course, the message of WE is equally important for practitioners seeking to implement best practices as it is for employees. Sometimes practitioners focus too much on individual outcomes, utilization data, or the many different pieces that are required to run a program. Sometimes individuals focus more on their own health issues and fail to see how much they are influenced by the group, the worksite, the overall approach. We all benefit from seeing how much “WE” are all in it together and, when we take that perspective and read in between the lines of best practices, WE can move from “good” to “great” in health and wellness.

[1] Goetzel, R., Guindon, A., Turshen, I., & Ozminkowski, R. (2001). Health and productivity management. Journal of Environmental & Occupational Medicine, 43(1), 10-17;

[2] HERO Scorecard

The Toolkit and its sections contains abundant information, tools, guidelines, and resources designed to help employers create or improve their own workplace health activities. Each video can help you get acquainted with the Toolkit in a very approachable way. The videos were specifically designed to support employers with limited resources to invest in worksite health promotion, and limited time to get to know a comprehensive website.

Until 2050, Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRICs economies) and South Africa—could become a much larger force in the world economy. It is sad that the Brazilian economy rebounded robustly in 2010 with a 7.5-percent growth thanks to strong domestic demand and heavy government investment. Brazil’s economy is now focusing on exports of commodities and services with high added value. According to some reports, Brazil was booked the role of big exporter of food and raw materials.

Looking at that scenario, Health and Human Resources professionals in Brazil, begins to discuss the Personnel Management in the BRICS countries, more specifically about the skills that the leaders of these countries need to keep their major development in order to be ready to achieve its growth targets. It is necessary that Brazil define with pragmatism the total spectrum of needs. This is the only way that will make us arrive in time where we intend.

Brazil has an internal competency that should be better explored. It will be our competitive advantage that is not directed related to the product. Brazilians have natural skills to relationship, integration, creativity and negotiation. There is no doubt that it will be one of our powerful currency exchanges. Our people are used to cultural diversity and received very friendly new ideas and others people. We are able to cooperate in a competition, and to compete in a cooperation environment. We can work with flexibility, kindness and good connections. Those are our forces that make our country so special. We should explore more this in the business field.

It might be a good idea to use this natural feature as a strategy for our growth. This fact becomes even more important the issue of wellness in our country. We really need to take education, health and wellness very seriously. Wellness should be included in the agenda of government, business, communities and universities when discussing the future of Brazil in relation to the BRICS countries as a fundamental matter. Improving our environment to efficiently have a place where liberty, equality and opportunity are known, will attract the best markets and the best talents.

It is necessary to work aligning business to the talents and the wellness field is full of infinite possibilities to a very good start. We already know what to do. The need is for a good plan, investments from the government and from the private initiatives, and the engagement from politicians and CEOS.

The idea of re-thinking the potential role of wellness in the culture to improve the development should be a major factor in a sustaining economic growth of BRiC countries in the coming years. If Brazil embraces wellness as a growth strategy, we could see a real and sustainable development in our emerging country making it a better place for all.

Charitable organizations, campaigns, and memorial funds –from the local, grass-root non-profits to large international operations–are increasingly woven into the social fabric of our lives. In these efforts, the “We” is obvious: we volunteer, we donate, we advocate. The very presence of these efforts reminds us of how we are all interconnected in health: from local to global, from one disease condition to another, and from person-to-person in our work, family, and community. On the surface, these may seem like a hodge-podge of disconnected efforts but really they are all working around the same theme of compassion and support to help prevent disease and promote health. The collaborative work that is taking place is truly inspiring and, often times, personal.

As an example of the local-global range of opportunities, just enter your zip code to explore any local effort by “United Way” and then check out CARE, an organization that reaches 87 countries around the world, supporting 905 poverty-fighting projects to reach more than 82 million people. To see an A-to-Z list of 70 respected health charities all in one place, visit Community Health Charities of America, with links to organizations supporting research in areas ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to Tourette’s syndrome. There are also local coalition efforts in communities all across the United States to prevent obesity, substance abuse, and other diseases. For example, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America represents the interests of more than 5,000 community anti-drug coalitions in the country, many coordinating the efforts of individuals, schools, community agencies, and workplaces.

But as I visit with people around the country about the “We” in wellness I am struck by how personal their involvement in these efforts can be. I met one woman who started a facebook page to help raise funds for her brother who had a rare form of lung disease. I met another man who spoke at a fund-raising event because his son–a local high-school football hero–died of a drug overdose. I know another girl who supports a national effort–also on facebook–because she lost her boyfriend in a motorcycle accident that was due to carelessness of the other driver.

As you consider the range of these efforts, contemplate how many ways you fit in to the “we.” Is it by virtue of your membership in a community? or membership in the human race? Is it by virtue of being touched by a particular disease in a friend or relative? Is it because you have a friend on FaceBook who is waking you to something bigger than yourself? However it shows up, is it possible that you are being called to recognize the “we” in wellness?

Joel B Bennett Ph.D.

Joel B. Bennett, Ph.D. is a researcher and consultant in the areas of employee well-being, organizational health and stress, workplace culture, and employee training. His consulting business customizes focus groups, culture audits, and assessment centers to help promote positive organizational change.

Portugese Language Version

Health promotion effectiveness is a very important matter that needs careful attention from all representatives groups of society. The relationship between the individual, their environment and health or disease must be considered and discussed because those influences can modify the health condition.

As Dahlgren and Whitehead, 1991, demonstrated, there is a network of influences on health. The personal behavior and ways of living is one of factors that can promote or damage health, for example: choice to smoke or not to smoke. Individuals are affected by friendship patterns and the norms of their community. The social and community also has influence on people health once it could provide mutual support for members of the community in unfavorable conditions either they could provide no support or have a negative effect. Structural factors should be considered as well: housing, working conditions, access to services and provision of essential facilities.

Brazil is concerned with these layers and connections of influences Next month the III Health Promotion Effectiveness Seminar will take place. The theme of Health Promotion Effectiveness: Broadening the Dialogue with the Government and the Society. The III Brazilian Seminar on Health Promotion Effectiveness (III SBEPS) will take place in Rio de Janeiro, May 23-26 2011.

The Brazilian Quality of Life Association (ABQV), a national non-profit organization that serves as an information center on health promotion and quality of life at worksite was invited to participate into the seminar’s organization. ABQV links institutions and communities into a supportive network that has as main propose to stimulate health promotion and quality of life at worksite in order to help individuals to make better lifestyle choices.

The seminar will discuss strategies of health promotion as a promising path in favor of improving the quality of life in a fair and equitable way. It is based on the conviction that the evaluation of policies and practices gives legitimacy to the health promotion because it gives evidence that their actions are able to produce significant changes in living conditions of people, groups and communities. The Brazilian Seminar will discuss the important topic – principles and values – for example: diversity and fairness, integrity, citizenship and the relationship with health promotion

It will enlarge the dialogue with the government and society through the following topics:

• The Health Promotion in the implementation of social policies and sustainable development with equity.
• Implementation of National Health Promotional Politics and its articulation with other policies of the Ministry of Health, and its regionalization in a local level.
• Methodologies for monitoring and assessment: translating the conceptual level to the practices and role of the inter-relationship between research, training and practice in this process.
• Conceptual dialogues about Health Promotion: Training of managers, professionals and multipliers.

Many others entities are involved and supporting the Seminar: ABRASCO (Brazilian Association of Pos-graduation of Community Health), UIPES/ ORLA (The Brazil Subregion of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education/Latin American Office), CEPEDOC/USP (Studies and Research in Healthy Cities from São Paulo University), SVS/MS (Public Health Vigilance Secretary / Brazilian Health Ministry), ENSP ( Public Health Promotion National School), ABQV (Brazilian Quality of Life Association), OPAS ( Health Pan-American Association), Petrobras, SENAC (National Service of Learning Comercial), SESI (Industry Social Service) , SESC (Comercial Social Service) some Universities and others.

Some international names on this field were invited : David McQueen (United States), Louise Potvin and Micael Pratt (Canada) and Ligia de Salazar (Colombia).

Toshi Wrote:

Perhaps, you might know the earthquake that occurs in Japan. I think that it is an interesting content for you. I have a lot of content passed on to you. However, you are told in this mail dividing into some.

Japan dysfunctions overall. The influence of electricity and the communication environment has especially extended to it besides the epicenter. It has been continuously generated that mail doesn’t reach. Missing person is 1.500, and 180.000 dead or more because the earthquake and the tsunami of it in Japan now. It means two or more towns was annihilated. Moreover, the nuclear plant in two places exploded. Therefore, the deportation order came out within the peripheral range of about 20km in the radius. Moreover, the radiation has diffused though is a small amount, too. The capital function has remarkably decreased to Tokyo.

There is no influence of parties concerned of wellness as long as I know. However, the possibility that people whom I do not know have been influenced is high.

I have been indirectly influenced, too. I was on the register in the army before. Therefore, I have the possibility of receiving summons. The reason for I is with the experience corresponding to the situation to which the island is annihilated because of the earthquake and the tsunami when on the register in the army. Japan has faced the state of emergency from Tokyo the region in the north.

Thanks Don, I know I’m keeping Toshi in my thoughts in the coming days, weeks and months.

Article in Portuguese

Worksite wellness programs are a proven strategy to improve productivity, maintain morale and quality of life, control health care costs and prevent major risks factors for chronic diseases, mainly related to lifestyle. Best results are obtained by program management using scientific-based strategies and best practices. Unfortunately, most companies offer basic programs, without leadership involvement, a good methodology (committee, budget, communication) and correct evaluation . It creates a huge barrier to make wellness movement strategic for the company. So it is necessary to offer training opportunities to professionals from different sizes of companies and industries to know how to manage worksite wellness programs. High level of demands, long distances and costs of travel make difficult to offer courses in each city of the country.

Industry Social Service (SESI) is a Brazilian non profit organization founded in 1946 with the aim of health, social and educational promotion and improvement of quality of life of industry employees throughout the country. This organization prepared a program with “Open Educational Resources (OER), available by web, 24 hours a day, which does no require a tutor because it is objective, with a short duration with many handouts and manuals.

A virtual educational program on worksite wellness management using the internet with written content and an audio tutor providing instructions in each chapter has been prepared based on Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) framework. Additional academic and research material has been offered. The course has been included activities to keep students engaged in the learning process and online quizzes to help people to remember the lessons. Everyone who passes the training courses receive a Certification of Completion and a 180-page Manual written by the authors.

The program includes topics behavior change and awareness strategies, economic perspectives, design and management of programs, evaluation and approaches in different dimensions of wellness. The course has been offered to 5,000 professionals of different size of industrial companies with no cost.

But what exactly is a person who is involved in ‘Wellness’?  Now, I’ve read about Dunn’s definition of wellness and the high-level achievement.  I always thought that the health educator was the perfect ‘wellness’ person because we’ve always thought prevention and high-level achievement was the logical aspect of life.  But obviously there are more people who use the word ‘Wellness’.

My question is:  “Who is qualified to associate themselves with the term ‘Wellness’?”  I believe without such focus the field can be invaded by semi-professionals or ‘quacks’ that prey at the expense of innocent people.

Let me give some examples of my concerns.

• Some of you may have heard of Dave Ramsey, the radio celebrity who helps people work through their personal budget issues.  Apparently there are disciples throughout the country who follow Mr. Ramsey’s approach (and let me state that I wholeheartedly support the Ramsey concept—read his book ‘Total Money Management for an understanding).  Throughout the Ramsey book he has quotes from people who have gone from being buried in debt to becoming completely debt free.  These individuals feel like a great weight has been lifted off their shoulder (one can imagine!).  Ramsey goes on to further state by removing all debt (including cars and houses) one can live life much more fully.  Would we consider Dave Ramsey (and his disciples) ‘Wellness’ professionals?  Certainly, anybody who has had financial difficulties knows the awkwardness of trying to balance one’s budget and how stressful it is.
• A second example is a minister of a church.  As a good minister, they ‘administer’ to the spiritual needs of their ‘flock’.  It would seem that if a person has ‘spiritual’ confidence, they would be able to face life to its fullest (isn’t that part of the creed of the Wellness individual?).  Could one claim that the minister is a wellness professional?
• A third example:  a husband and wife walk into a local nutrition store.  They are greeted by a sales clerk, who is called  a ‘Wellness Advisor’.  This ‘advisor’ consults with the couple and helps them select four or five items to purchase (at great cost) to help improve their ‘wellness’.  In reality, these individuals are paid minimum wage (or paid a commission on what they sell), have little or any formal training beyond high school (certainly nothing in a health or wellness related profession).  The ‘Wellness Advisor’ has training given to them by the corporate owners of the nutrition store that preys on the fears of consumers that our nutrition is weak, our food is tainted by various chemicals, and that the medical field is working in covert actions to hold back the real ‘knowledge’ on health and nutrition.

Are any of these three scenarios acceptable to you as a professional in wellness?  It isn’t to me.  Wellness is a very broad and unclear concept.  With that broadness comes with the risk of having people use the term inappropriately to ride the ‘wave’ of health promotion concepts that currently exists.

Recently I had an opportunity to venture back to the Midwest and review the Fisher Institute of Wellness and Gerontology at Ball State University.  For those of you who know about the Fisher Institute, it is one of the very few in the country (and perhaps the world) that prepares individuals with a graduate degree in wellness (they also focus on gerontology, but that’ another blog at another time).  Our own Michaela Conley is an alum of that program.  They have a very clear-cut curriculum that people who graduate with an MA or MS in Wellness can proudly (and justifiably) claim they are well prepared to deal with individuals in the Wellness field.

But that’s one program…we do not have any other criteria to limit who can call who what.

Who lays claims to be a wellness professional?  Just their words?  Their actions?  Their beliefs?

That is not how you run a profession.  Wellness is old enough to start becoming accountable.  Almost every ‘health’ related professional has a set of criteria that they must possess to maintain their professional status.  Obviously allied health professionals such as dental hygienists, nurses, respiratory therapists, EMTs all go through rigorous training and are expected to maintain a high level of continuing education.  Since the 1990s Health Educators have a certification process that requires continuing education; other related professionals such as social workers, dieticians, drug counselors, physicians also have either licensure or certification, along with continuing education, to maintain their professional status. Since the late 1980s there has been certification of Diabetes Educators (CDEs) that have strict guidelines on what it takes to use the initials CDE after their name.  The past few years have seen a surge in the term ‘Health Coaching’ (whatever that is) and what should a health coach possess (along with an effort to ‘certify’ such idnividuals).

So why not wellness?  The time has come.

I propose that somebody in the leadership position in wellness field (Michaela?) take the lead and pull together some of the more common professions that use the term ‘Wellness’, and start identifying a series of competencies, skills, and other items that should make up a wellness person.  Perhaps it’s time to have a Certified Wellness distinction that people who meet such skills can include after their names, along with a requirement for continuing education.  Without it, the legitimate ‘Wellness’ professionals will continue to be questioned on what they do, as well as be placed in the same boat as potential quacks who exploit innocent people with their ‘notion’ of wellness.

What should consist of somebody who is in wellness?  Should it be something like the Certified Diabetes Educator where a person can come from a variety of academic training, but must have specific types of courses?  Should we try to create a new ‘major’ at the university level (probably difficult to do in these higher education times);   should it consist of post-degree training where individuals must attend specific seminars, courses, etc?  I’m not sure, but what I am sure is that something must be done to maintain the credibility and rigor of millions of people who are legitimate wellness professionals.

Learn from the field of health education.  Whether you buy into the core of health education and who is qualified to do it, the profession does have clear-cut criteria on what they should be able to do.  There are seven competencies that all health educators must be able to do to achieve certification.  Health Educators, by their nature, are wellness educators.  Yet, they don’t necessarily want claim for the title themselves.  In addition they could become the police force to specifically challenge people without credible training that use the term wellness to describe their job—but I suspect they are not interested in doing it.

It’s time to grow up and start defending our profession.  Start identifying what it takes to be a ‘wellness’ professional and start protecting your name and your profession.  If you don’t, you’ll go down the path as a group of semi-professionals who will not receive the support of other health-related professionals or worse, allow smooth-talking charlatans to take over the tasks of legitimately trained wellness professionals.