Short-term economic evaluation of physical activity-based corporate health programs: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: Corporate health programs (CHPs) aim to improve employees' health through health promotion strategies at the workplace. Physical activity (PA) plays a crucial role in primary prevention, leading many companies to implement PA-based CHPs. However, there is limited examination in the scientific literature on whether PA-based CHPs (PA-CHPs) lead to economic benefits. This systematic review aimed to summarize the available literature on the economic aspects of PA-CHPs. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted to identify studies focused on PA-CHPs targeting healthy sedentary workers and reporting at least one economic outcome, such as return on investment (ROI), costs, or sick leave. RESULTS: Of 1036 studies identified by our search strategy, 11 studies involving 60 020 participants met the inclusion criteria. The mean (±SD) cost per capita for PA-CHPs was estimated as 359€ (±238€) (95% CI, 357-361€). In 75% of the studies, the net savings generated by PA-CHPs in 12 months were reported, with an average of 1095€ (±865€) (95% CI, 496-1690€). ROI was assessed in 50% of the included studies, with an average of 3.6 (±1.41) (95% CI, 2.19-5.01). CONCLUSIONS: In addition to promoting a healthy lifestyle, PA-CHPs have the potential to generate significant economic returns. However, the heterogeneity among the existing studies highlights the need for standardization and accurate reporting of costs in future research.

Cardiovascular disease prevention in the worksite: Where are we?

The current guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology on cardiovascular (CV) disease prevention highlighted the importance of implementing coordinated set of action, including worksite, aimed at eliminating or minimizing the impact of CV disease and their related disabilities. Workplace wellness programs tend to focus on modifiable risk factors of non-communicable disease, such as nutrition, physical activity, and smoking cessation. However, nowadays, corporate wellness programs are still rare and incomplete, and usually received limited attention. This represents a big public health issue since company health and wellness interventions may provide an important opportunity to identify and manage CV risk. Given the increasing of employees' average age, a progressive shifting of retirement age and an increased number of chronic diseases, these preventive programs will increasingly represent key factors of both employee's health and economic strategies of companies in the near future.

Pain Science Education Plus Exercise Therapy in Chronic Nonspecific Spinal Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-analyses of Randomized Clinical Trials.

Exercise therapy and education are recommended from several guidelines for managing symptoms in chronic nonspecific spinal pain (CNSP) patients. However, no systematic reviews have previously analyzed the effectiveness of pain science education (PSE) plus exercise therapy for managing CNSP related symptoms. Systematic searches were conducted on 10 databases looking for randomized control trials (RCTs) aimed to evaluate the effectiveness on pain, disability, kinesiophobia, and catastrophizing. Data were analyzed using random-effects meta-analyses and studies were appraised using the Cochrane ROB tool and GRADE. A total of eight RCTs (n = 622) were included in the qualitative-analysis and five were selected for meta-analysis. PSE plus exercise therapy showed improvements in pain (5RCTs: short-term: SMD: -0.53 [-0.86,-0.2]; 4RCTs: intermediate-term: SMD: -0.57 [-1.01,-0.14]; low quality), disability (4RCTs: short-term: SMD: -0.24 [-0.53,0.05]; 4RCTs: intermediate-term: SMD: -0.93 [-1.08,-0.03]; low-to-very-low quality), kinesiophobia (3RCTs: short-term: SMD: -0.7 [-1.51,0.11]; 4RCTs: intermediate-term: SMD: -0.93 [-1.57,-0.30]; moderate-to-very-low quality), and catastrophizing (2RCTs: short-term: MD: -3.26 points [-6.15,-0.37]; 3RCTs: intermediate-term: MD: -4.94 points [-8.08,-1.81]; low-to-very-low quality) compared to exercise alone. A qualitative-analysis showed improvements in the experimental group compared to multimodal physiotherapy (1RCT; low-to-very-low quality), whereas no clear benefits were reported compared to PSE alone (1RCT; very-low quality) or no intervention (1RCT; very-low quality). There is low to very-low certainty of the evidence suggesting that PSE plus exercise therapy reduces CNSP related-symptoms. PERSPECTIVE: Based on low-quality data from small samples, PSE plus exercise therapy reduces CNSP related symptoms. The evidence requires further investigation due to the limited number of studies with short follow-up periods (CRD42020168968).