ABSTRACT
BackgroundThe target group of the project, working age population, is more vulnerably exposed to the risk factors of NCDs due to deficiency of physical activities, stress, unhealthy eating, etc. The current study was carried out to assess the knowledge and attitude on health promoting workplaces among the employees of public and non-governmental organizations and businesses operating in Kherlen soum of Khentii aimag, identify their needs and make conclusions.Materials and MethodsThe cross-sectional study used questionnaires for 195 employees of 10 public agencies and 3 business entities of Kherlen soum of Khentii aimag, focus group discussions among 32 employees and individual interviews with 13 managing officials.ResultsWomen composed 38% (74 persons) and men composed 62% (121 persons) of the participants of the study. As for the duration of the service, 115 people or 58.7% have served for 1-10 years, 49 people or 25% have served for 11-20 years, 21 persons or 10.7% have served for 21-30 years and 6 persons or 3.1% have worked for 30 years. As for the knowledge of health promoting workplaces, the absolute majority of the participants demonstrated medium or low level of knowledge with statistical significance (p<0.01) among ages, with women demonstrating higher level of knowledge and increasing trend with the years of work. Absolute majority of the participants of the qualitative survey answered that possess insufficient information of health promoting workplaces. Majority or 54.2% (105) of the participants understand health promoting workplaces as provision of working conditions and organization of preventive health check ups. Creating healthy workplaces will have no negativeimpact but increased productivity, higher morale, better wellness, according to the respondents. Job satisfaction as an impact of health promotion at workplace was supported by 48.4% of the employees at 20-30 years age and 54.2% of the employees who have served for 11-20 years. 57.7% (112) of the respondents disagree that their workplaces created health promoting conditions. The knowledge of the majority of the participants in insufficient as 89.3% answer that WHP is provision of healthy environment for working. Health promotion is not implemented sufficiently at the policy level and is limited merely to improvement of physical environment and solution of social problems, with insufficient behavior targeting actions and participation of employees in health promoting activities.Conclusions:1. The knowledge on health promoting workplaces is insufficient.2. The answers of the respondents that lack of health promotion at workplaces will reduce productivity (69.2%) and adversely affect the health of the employees (44.7%) demonstrate the need in WHP.3. The further activities necessary for further development of health promoting workplaces were identified as provision of comprehensive knowledge, cooperation with professional organizations and learn from experiences of health promoting workplace models, mutual learning and solution of the financial issues.