A compelling case can be made supporting an increased business investment in health promotion – an investment of time, energy, attention and money. For far too long, the health care industry has spent a disproportionate amount of these resources on the supply side of the economic equation. We have largely ignored the promise of demand-side intervention strategies, which stress health promotion and simply investing in keeping people well. It is good to see such health promotion initiatives finally beginning to receive well-deserved recognition as legitimate and, I would argue, essential tools that hold real promise to provide significant positive impact on people’s well-being.

Hippocrates, a Greek physician born in 460 B.C., is widely regarded as the founder of the medical profession. Even today, physicians pledge to practice according to the Hippocratic Oath, requiring them to "first, do no harm." A lesser known, but equally important quote from this father of medicine is that "the function of protecting and developing health must rank even above that of restoring it when it is impaired." I believe that Hippocrates really nailed it centuries ago! How very unfortunate that we have not embraced this extraordinarily sage advice and centered our health care system on it.

As we face the challenges of today’s health care system, simple logic compels us to turn the monster health care ship in the direction of health promotion…and the workplace is an ideal place to begin. Consider the following:

1. As a nation, we continue to experience exponential increases in health care spending, without relative improvements in health. In the U.S., we spent $2.16 trillion on health care in 2006. That represents 16% of our gross domestic product (GDP). If we continue on this path, by 2030 we will spend fully a third of our GDP on health. That’s more than any other industrialized nation and yet the U.S. ranks far down the list of nations on major accepted measures of health status such as infant mortality, disease prevalence and lifespan.

2. The lion’s share of our spending is on chronic disease and largely-preventable injuries, rather than health promotion and disease prevention. Current estimates are that 95% of our health care spending is devoted to the former, and just 5% on prevention.

3. A huge proportion of diseases and their associated costs are directly related to modifiable health risk factors. The top three leading causes of death in the U.S. – heart disease, cancer and stroke – have as root causes largely-modifiable risk factors such as smoking, obesity, elevated cholesterol and lack of exercise. It is a painful reality that what ails us is for the most part how we live our lives.

4. Individuals with high disease-risk cost more in terms of direct medical costs and often have a reduced quality of life. For example, the health care costs of current smokers are almost 30% higher than the costs of non-smokers. For those who are obese, the disparity if even greater…37% higher.

5. Improvement in the risk profile of a population will reduce health-related costs and will improve quality of life. For example, one large national diabetes-prevention study was stopped a year early because it demonstrated that even moderate exercise and diet change can reduce the chance of developing type 2 diabetes – a costly and sometimes debilitating disease.

6. There is mounting evidence that well-designed worksite-based health promotion and disease-prevention programs provide significant payback. There are literally dozens of recent studies that demonstrate that worksite health promotion programs can reduce health care expenditures and produce a positive return on the investment. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Citibank, Xerox and Bank of America have experienced tremendous returns by investing in the wellness of their workers.

Think about it. Employed people spend most of their waking hours at the worksite. Doesn’t that make the workplace an ideal venue in which to promote health? The bottom line is that investing in the health of employees is the single best investment a business can make. Healthy people consume fewer resources in terms of benefit payments for medical care, disability and workers’ compensation. Healthy employees are more productive, since they are absent less often and are more focused on tasks while they are at work. In the long run, this kind of investment will benefit both the employer (and society as a whole) in both monetary and non-monetary ways. Indeed, an ounce of health is worth a pound of healthcare!!