A Definitive Guide To Workplace Health Risk Assessments

The end of 2023 is approaching, and the world is gradually taking the healthy lifestyle concept seriously. Even workplaces are aiming to create a healthy office space for employees. If you ask what “healthy office space” means, it simply means that the working environment promotes employee wellness and collaboration.

Healthy employees are the foundational pillar of your successful business. They are productive and diligent in their work, resulting in better customer experience.

At present day, work culture is no less than a race against time. A report by the American Psychological Association exclusively mentions workplace stress as the causative factor for the deteriorated wellness of 75% of surveyed employees. It is known that they are complaining about becoming workaholics and unproductive while at work.

According to the American Institute of Stress, absenteeism, high medical costs, employee turnover, and occupational hazards account for $300 billion annually.

It's high time to engage employees in new ways of health and fitness for better organizational growth. It is when the introduction of Health Risk Assessments is the call of the hour to improve quality of life.

Incorporating health risk assessments can play an essential role in acknowledging the health disparities your employees face.

In this blog, you will get to learn everything related to the popular Risk Assessments process, including history of HRAs, benefits of HRAs, difference between Health Risk Assessment And Appraisal and so on.

Let's jump right in.

What Is A Health Risk Assessment?

A Health risk assessment, or HRA, is a tool comprising of questionnaires prepared to evaluate an individual’s lifestyle and health risk factors. It is also known as health risk appraisal or health assessment, covering a broad topic of health and wellness program.

Talking about the questions, HRA usually covers a wide of aspects of an individual’s health, as listed below:

• Physical activity level
• Nutritional intake
• Day-to-day lifestyle habits
• Sleep pattern
• Stress levels
• Emotional health status

Through HRA, employers can gather their employees' health status. It identifies the possible risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. HRAs help HR and population health officials take necessary actions well before the health conditions become severe.

Here’s what a standard health risk assessment comprises:

• A questionnaire
• Risk score
• Individual feedback report citing areas of improvement

What is the History of Health Risk Assessments?

According to sources, the history of health risk assessments goes back to the 1940s. Dr. Lewis C. Robbins, a pioneer of prospective medicine, is entwined with the inception of HRAs. He ideated the need to track patients’ health risks in the form of a guide to treat and prevent future health problems.

He suggested the creation of a “health hazard chart,” which will provide health experts a detailed insight into a patient’s medical history. This would help doctors to tackle health problems better. Eventually, the health hazard chart concept evolved into what we call today the HRA.

Benefits of HRAs

Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 6 out of 10 Americans deal with chronic illness. There are 5 most common types of chronic illness - high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity, and obesity. Given the unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle that most employees lead, they fall prey to atleast one of these illnesses.

This, in turn, increases employee absenteeism rate, costing employers US $36.4 billion a year in the United States. In addition to this, the increased absenteeism contributes to decreased productivity. This, again, costs employers atleast $575 billion yearly.

Hence, incorporating an effective wellness program in the workplace is in demand. Such programs come packed with customizable HRA and other health-tracking aspects.

Coming over to the topic of the hour, below are some of the benefits that health risk assessments instill in the workplace:

1. Contribute to the culture of health

Health risk assessment is an essential piece of wellness programs. Every employee has to go through the initial biometric data screening to know their health status. Incorporating health HRA in wellness programs guarantees your employees participate in wellness activities contributing to a culture of wellness at work.

Related: 8 Ways To Create And Nurture A Culture Of Wellness In The Workplace

2. Increase engagements

To create a productive work culture, you need to engage your employees in their work. This can only be possible when you understand your employees well and devise a system that makes them feel worthy of working.

HRA helps you to curate all the necessary factors to consider while curating your wellness strategies. This customizes the process and adds value to the corporate wellness programs.

You can also gamify the process by offering wellness incentives. Simultaneously, create a wellness campaign, reward, and recognize your employees for their achievements. It also contributes to a higher team bonding.

3. Decreased health risks

Employees become aware of their unhealthy lifestyle through these assessments. It creates possibilities where your employees switch their bad habits after following your analyzed feedback. This decreases the moderate health risks, which earlier was overlooked.

4. Limits Absenteeism and Presenteeism

A healthy employee is equal to a happy employee. At work, actively disengaged employees provide various health excuses not to work. This impacts the quality of the job, ultimately resulting in bad user experience. HRA helps in identifying the employee's concerns for being disengaged, and this report supports the employers to take action steps.

Related : Employee Wellbeing: An Essential Factor At Workplace

5. Reduce Healthcare Costs

Many organizations cover their employees' medical bills through health insurance. This means that the healthier the employees, the lower will be the health costs. It is known that only 70-90% of healthcare costs are spent on preventable to moderate health issues.

Through assessment, you can identify these employees and advise them to improve their health. This ultimately brings down business spending on healthcare.

How Worksite Wellness Helps In Reducing Employee Healthcare Costs

Health Risk Assessment vs. Health Risk Appraisal

What Are The Essentials Of A Health Risk Assessment?

Creating an ideal health risk assessment involves 4 major steps, starting with proper planning on approaching the same.

The steps include:

1. Identifying the hazard
2. Understanding the hazard exposure and its possible risks
3. Assessing the exposure level
4. Evaluating the risks

Working on the essentials is necessary to successfully protect employees or any prospective individual’s health and safety. It reduces the possible risk of occupational hazards, keeping your business thriving.

Now that you have learned the basics, this is what HRA contains and does.

1. Heath survey questions

The core aim of creating reviews is to curate honest employee answers. Hence the pulse survey questions must make sense and add value to your employee's health problem. Evidence-based assessments are one such approach that uses the latest clinically researched questions. Every HRA should include it to help their employees make better decisions.

2. Identification of risk factors

After the survey questionnaire, analyze the health conditions through different tests starting with biometric screening. Health coaches can identify the risk factors of your employees based on their answers and the test reports.

3. Allocate severity scores

There must be an indicator to determine employee wellbeing. It can be a numeric value or can be level indicating light to a critical state. This helps your employees to comprehend their health status well. It also alerts them to consider health care in their daily activities.

4. Provide feedback for improvement

Health managers may bring out a well-defined report of employees' health status. Based on that, they should provide various helpful solutions and tools. Creating awareness of health promotional activities or health coaching are some ways to foster improvement.

Related : What Is A Health Coach And How They Help In Employee Engagement

5. Estimate solution budget

No doubt, creating health risk assessments helps save the company's costs. But including it with corporate health check-up policies will elevate the entire employee experience.

With health insurance, companies can cut an extra levy to afford expensive tests for employees.

Related : 7 Best Ways Employers Can Control Their Employee's Healthcare Costs

Role of HRAs in Controlling Healthcare Costs

CDC reports suggest that in the United States, about $4.1 trillion is spent in the form of healthcare costs. And 90 percent of it is spent on patients battling chronic diseases. According to another study, annually, employers are spending approximately $3600 per employee with unhealthy lifestyle habits.

To cut such costs, creating a proper health plan for workplaces is the need of the hour. This is where enforcing HRAs is essential to promote workplace wellness.

With an appropriate HRA, companies can help diagnose the possibility of any chronic illness among their employees. For instance, employers can find out their employees’ stress levels and the reasons behind them. And accordingly, they can curate a wellness plan that will suit employees’ healthcare needs.

Similarly, population health experts can do the same to minimize the health costs of the general public.

*Here’s how HRAs have helped out in controlling healthcare costs: *

In 2002, West Virginia’s Monongalia Health System incorporated a wellness program. With that, employees had to fill out health risk assessment questionnaires. They also attended workshops to hone their decision-making skills related to health care.

This West Virginia-based health system then extracted all the required health data from the HRAs to identify all kinds of unhealthy behaviors. This data was then studied in the fields of nutrition, fitness, weight management, heart care, and smoking cessation.

This helped them to maintain a steady healthcare cost for the next two years, while other employers saw a rise of about 12-13 percent.

Types of Health Risk Assessments (HRAs)

1. Comprehensive HRAs

This type of HRA is extensive and offers a holistic view of an individual’s health conditions. It covers all the dimensions of wellness. It covers various health marker tests like cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, total blood count, urine tests, cancer screening tests, infectious disease tests, etc.

The key components include -

• Nutrition
• Fitness
• Stress
• Sleep
• Mental health
• Biometric data

2. Condition-Specific HRAs

Conditon-specific HRAs are more particular in nature. These risk assessments are designed to study the chances of contracting a particular illness or health condition.

For instance, condition-specific HRAs include

• Joint pain assesment
• Diabetes risk assessment
• Cardiovascular risk assessment
• Mental health risk assessment
• Breast cancer risk assessment

3. Lifestyle HRAs

Lifestyle HRAs focus on studying health risks associated with lifestyle choices and behaviors.

The key components include -

• Smoking
• Alcohol consumption
• Physical activity
• Dietary habits

4. Workplace HRAs

This type of assessment is specifically designed for corporate scenarios in order to assess employees' health risks and needs. Enrolling HRAs in the workplace promotes wellness programs at work, reduces absenteeism, and increases productivity.

5. Geriatric HRAs

This type of health risk assessment is tailored for the elderly population to assess risks and health problems associated with aging.

The key components include -

• Mobility
• Cognitive function
• Medication review
• Fall risk

6. Pediatric HRAs

As the term suggests, these are curated for children and adolescents to evaluate health risks they are more susceptible to.

The key components include -

• Growth and development
• Vaccination status
• Behavioural health

7. Pregnancy and Maternal HRAs

Assess risks for pregnant women and potential complications during pregnancy. Pregnancy and Maternal HRAs should be included along with workplace HRAs. This will additionally create a better impression of the workplace.

The key components include -

• Prenatal care
• Nutrition
• Potential complications
• Postnatal care

8. Travel HRAs

Travel health risk assessment helps identify and evaluate health risks associated with traveling. This HRA is essential, especially for travelers who visit regions with specific health concerns.

The key components include -

• Vaccination status
• Exposure to infectious diseases
• Travel itinerary

How To Conduct A Health Risk Assessment At The Workplace?

Employers must regularly assess their employees' risk severity, and failure to conduct them is considered an offense.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, a recommended five-step process can be carried out to ensure the corporate risk assessment.

It involves:

• Identification of potential risks

• Identifying who are affected by the risks

• Evaluating risk severity and devising suitable precautions

• Recording the findings

• Reviewing the assessment time to time

Key Components of an Effective HRA Program

An effective HRA program motivates individuals to be health conscious, aside from identifying the health risks for prospective individuals. In addition to this, an apt HRA program has the facility to reach a diverse population via all kinds of delivery modes.

The most common delivery modes that are usually used for HRAs include -

• Online or web-based
• Mobile applications
• Paper-based
• Telephonic
• Email Based
• Health fair events
• Corporate wellness programs
• Social media campaigns

Since an HRA collects all the required biometric data and health vitals to summarize customized health reports for each individual, it gives a thorough peek into one’s health status. Further, HRA also covers every possible treatment and action for the health conditions detected.

Types of Questions Human Health Assessments Address

The typical human health risk assessment questionnaire covers a wide range of areas, such as:

• Demographics involving age and gender.
• Way of lifestyle
• Emotional health, mental health, physical health
• Previous and current health status

For a better understanding, here is a list of human health risk assessment questions:

Nutrition:

1. How many servings of fruits and vegetables do you consume daily?
2. Have you ever had any food allergies or dietary restrictions?
3. Are you a frequent consumer of sugary or high-calorie drinks?

Physical Activity:

1. Are you active for at least 30 minutes on an average of three times a week?
2. How often do you exercise, and what type of exercises do you perform?
3. In your spare time or for work, how many hours do you spend sitting?

Tobacco Use:

1. Have you ever used tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco?
2. If you have used tobacco in the past, have you quit, or are you currently using tobacco products?
3. Do you have any exposure to secondhand smoke in your home or workplace?

Alcohol Consumption:

1. How many alcoholic beverages do you typically consume in a week? Please specify the type and quantity.

Stress and Mental Health:

1. How would you rate your overall stress level on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being minimal stress and 10 being extremely stressed?
2. Have you experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression in the past six months?
3. Do you engage in stress-reduction practices such as mindfulness, meditation, or yoga?

Sleep Patterns:

1. On average, how many hours of sleep do you get per night during the workweek and on weekends?
2. Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? If so, how often?

Chronic Conditions and Medications:

1. Do you have any diagnosed chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, or asthma?
2. Is there anything you are taking right now, whether it is a prescription or an over-the-counter medication? Please list them.

Screening and Preventive Care:

1. Have you seen a healthcare provider in the last few months?
2. Are you up-to-date on recommended screenings, such as mammograms, colonoscopies, and vaccinations?
3. Do you regularly self-examine or screen for skin and breast cancers?

Role of HRAs in Population Health and Workplace Wellness

HRAs help gather a great deal of biometric data, which helps identify the quality of life that a group of people are leading. For example, after careful data collection and analysis of a handful of people, reports suggest the following:

• A certain percentage of people do not indulge in any proper physical activity for 30 minutes daily.
• A certain percentage of people experience considerable levels of stress at all times.

Now, getting such a response is alarming, be it for employers or for health organizations who are trying to reduce healthcare costs. It’s because leading a lifestyle wherein there is a lack of adequate physical activity or an individual undergoes immense stress is prone to chronic disorders.

So, what steps can be taken to avert such a situation?

Health admins or HRs can arrange for healthier lifestyle changes to bring in positive health changes. Here’s how:

For general public

• Schedule brisk walks in the morning or evening.
• Encourage taking stairs or walking short distances instead of taking a vehicle.
• Encourage them to perform NEAT exercises like fidgeting and moving around.
• Promote the essence of taking up hobbies that will tend to their wellness needs.

For workplace wellness

• Arrange for walking meetings.
• Encourage employees to work at standing desks.
• Encourage the practice of chair yoga poses.
• Enroll employees in a corporate wellness program. Incentivize them for completing wellness challenges.

When it comes to corporate wellness programs, the marketplace is filled with options to choose from. And it is only natural to get confused while choosing the right one for your organization. Vantage Fit is a name that may interest you in this case.

This platform is built to create a happier and healthier workforce holistically. The platform also offers customized wellness features integrated with incentivization and gamification.

Book a demo to learn how Vantage Fit can help you create a successful wellness challenges for your employees.

The Value of Self-Reported Data in HRAs

Self-reported data for HRA purposes is known to be essential for preventative healthcare as well as population health management in general. Although it may have its limitations, self-reported health data definitely has the power to help health experts treat and prevent health conditions.

Talking about biases when it comes to self-reports. It’s because of factors such as:

• Inaccurate interpretation of one’s health status or the questions
• Influence of social desirability regarding health

Self-reported health data provide the below-mentioned benefits that make HRA invaluable for health experts:

1. Invaluable health data insights

Medical health assessments are indeed efficient in detecting any health risks or conditions. However, HRA questionnaires give individuals an opportunity to share their lifestyle choices. This way, the concerned HRA assessor can draw a clear picture of the individual’s quality of life.

2. Cost-effective

Health risk assessments are very much feasible. Also, it keeps the window open for individuals to partake in medical assessments in the future if required.

3. Sheds light on one’s health status

Filling an HRA allows one to dive deeply into how they lead their life. Looking at the questions for HRA will help them introspect about their fitness level and nutritional status. This will help create a certain level of health awareness.

Challenges and Solutions in HRA Participation

Like everything else, HRA has its fair share of challenges. But with the challenges related to HRA, there are solutions, too. Here are some common challenges and solutions that are worth mentioning:

Challenge 1: Participants may be reluctant

HRA is a concept that is new to many. So, participants may answer the questionnaire with some level of bias. Being skeptical, they may hesitate to respond genuinely to questions revolving around their wellness.

Solution:

The best way to create awareness about health risk assessment is to arrange innovative marketing campaigns. These campaigns may be digital or offline.

Challenge 2: Participants may fear about data leaks

Fear of data leaks is again a form of lack of awareness about how HRA works. So, participants may feel reluctant to genuinely fill in the HRA. Now, it will be problematic for health experts to study and diagnose the participants’ health status accurately.

Solution:

To protect patients' valuable health information, the US government introduced the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) back in 1996. So, organizations in the US, especially those looking to conduct HRA, should be HIPAA compliant.

If the service is outsourced, the third party should be HIPAA and Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 compliant. It is also important to ensure the health data collected are encrypted and given limited access.

Challenge 3: Lack of health education

If the participants are unaware of the basics of health and welfare, it will be pretty tricky for them to fill out the HRA correctly. Such individuals may not even understand the questions properly.

Solution:

The best way to promote the topic of health and welfare is to do the following:

Organize health awareness campaigns where specialized guest speakers can provide accurate information on health issues. Provide access to health services and information. Encourage healthy lifestyle choices.

Challenge 4: Lack of motivation to participate in HRAs

For employers who are looking for ways to promote wellness in the workplace, they may come across employees reluctant to take part in HRAs.

Solution:

The power of incentives is enormous in planting the seed of motivation in people's minds. Incentives boost the human mind to participate and achieve the given task at hand. So, employers can encourage employees with incentives to increase the participation rate in HRAs.

Choosing the Right HRA for Your Organization

Bringing in the right kind of health risk assessment suitable for your organization seems like a daunting task. It is, infact, a vital decision to make as it will determine the wellness program for your employees. Here are some pointers that you should consider:

1. Set your goal!

Determining why you need an HRA in the first place is essential. The most common goal in such cases is to promote and achieve employee wellness and increase employee productivity.

Once you are all set with the goal setting, you can lay down a blueprint of all the requirements to go ahead with the wellness program.

2. Should you build or create it?

Having an in-house HRA sounds like a budget-friendly and convenient plan. But, as you dig deeper to create one, you may have to pass through multiple challenges, which will only require more of your resources, manpower, and time. Calculate your budget and the amount of time you would want to spend.

So, the smarter choice is to opt for an HRA service provider or even a corporate wellness platform. This will streamline the next set of actions revolving around HRA curation to enrolling your employees for the same.

3. Do a thorough research to get the best.

Carry out thorough market research to find out and understand the efficiency of the available wellness platforms. Go through the feedback reviews and study their content, integration, engagement level, customizability, and reports.

4. Schedule for demos to take a test drive

Taking a demo is a must to get a proper peek into how efficient and suitable the HRA is for your organization.

Leading HRA Providers in the US

1. WebMD Health Services:

WebMD Health Services offers HRA solutions for employers looking to promote employee wellness and health plans. The platform includes customized assessments, health coach services, and digitized resources to help users improve their health.

2. Wellsource:

Wellsource provides HRA solutions for health organizations, crafting wellness programs and insurers. Operating for the last 40 years, their services are customizable and evidence-based.

3. Virgin Pulse:

Virgin Pulse provides employee wellness and engagement solutions, including health risk assessments. To encourage healthy behaviors among employees, the platform offers wellness challenges and health-tracking features.

4. StayWell(Now WebMD Ignite):

StayWell, now WebMD Ignite offers extensive wellness and health management solutions, which include HRAs. They offer interactive educational content and data-driven insights to help users make informed health decisions.

5. WellRight

WellRight is another HRA service provider that needs to be mentioned in the list. It is a wellness tech organization that offers a wide range of services, starting from customizable health risk assessments to crafting wellness programs seamlessly.

How To Conduct A Health Risk Assessment At The Workplace?

Employers must regularly assess their employees' risk severity, and failure to conduct them is considered an offense.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, a recommended five-step process can be carried out to ensure the corporate risk assessment.
It involves:

• Identification of potential risks
• Identifying who is affected by the risks
• Evaluating risk severity and devising suitable precautions
• Recording the findings
• Reviewing the assessment from time to time

Tailoring Health Risk Assessments to Specific Business Needs

All HRA service providers or vendors keep several HRA templates that are ready to use. While such templates make it easier for employers to choose and start off, there are certain limitations.

For instance, ready-to-go HRA templates may not suit an industry-specific organization or the employees. Most importantly, every workplace has its own set of wellness requirements. Going for a generalized health risk assessment template may not fulfill your organizational goals related to wellness.

Infact, every business has its unique working environment, challenges, and health and safety requirements. So, tailoring the HRAs suiting a specific business will help the purpose of health assessments better.

Here are common challenges associated with some business environments and how tailoring HRAs for these usually can work:

1. Manufacturing and Industrial Businesses:

Employees in manufacturing businesses often have to indulge in physically demanding tasks. The primary focus must be on occupational health and safety.

HRA for such workplaces should cover the following:

• Workplace safety
• Ergonomics at work
• Physical fitness

2. Tech Startups and IT Companies:

Tech and IT workplaces will have employees with a sedentary lifestyle, bad posture, poor eating habits, and poor mental health. They are also susceptible to poor eye health due to excess screen time.

HRA for such workplaces should cover the following:

• Mental health assessments
• Stress management resources

3. Retail and Service Industries:

Employees of this specific business industry commonly witness unusual work schedules. This eventually leads to a disrupted work-life balance.

HRA for such workplaces should cover the following:

• Nutrition management
• Physical fitness
• Stress management

4. Hospitality and Tourism:

Employees engaged in the hospitality and tourism business industry have shift work timings, irregular hours, and stress-inducing roles.

HRA for such workplaces should cover the following:

• Address sleep patterns
• Stress management

5. Financial Services and Banking:

Employees in the financial sector are often seen to experience high-stress levels and sedentary lifestyles.

HRA for such workplaces should cover the following:

• Financial well-being
• Stress management
• Physical fitness

Bottom Line

Health risk assessments are key to unlocking the ultimate form of employee wellness. HRAs can assist in improving an individual’s health and drive an organization to its success. Simply put, a successful organization is one where there are happy and healthy employees.

Employers must look for new ways to engage their employees for genuine participation. Offering an HRA is no longer a low-hanging fruit. It is beneficial when these assessments add value to employees' health and wellness.

Rolling out tailored HRAs suiting an organization’s background and employee requirements is a great way to create a happy workplace. It helps foster a culture of health at work and decreases health risks, eventually reducing healthcare costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How Can An HRA Contribute To A Culture Of Health?

Incorporating health HRA in wellness programs guarantees the participation rate in wellness activities, contributing to a culture of wellness, be it at work or in general.

2. Do Health Risk Assessments Save Organizations Money?

Yes. Health risk assessments can save organizations billions of money every year. Getting employees to fill in the tailored HRAs allows employers, HRs, or health admins to keep tabs on their employees' health status.

On filling out the HRA questionnaire, employees will get the opportunity to reflect on their lifestyle choices. This will ignite the need to lead a healthier lifestyle, keep a work-life balance, etc.

With this, motivated employees will seek ways to bring positive changes in their lifestyles. If not, enrolling them in a wellness program will push them to live healthier. And in the long run, they will attain a good state of well-being, which reduces employers’ healthcare costs.

3. What Should You Look For In An HRA Vendor?

An ideal HRA vendor will provide solutions that follow the below-given conditions:

• Have former experience in delivering quality healthcare services in the area.
• It should be based on foolproof research studies published in reputed, professionally reviewed journals.
• Offer seamless user experience with the option to customize.
• The vendor should have legitimate industry and security certifications to provide HRA solutions.
• Have customer support ready to implement, transfer health data, generate reports, and manage participation.

4. How Accurate Are HRAs?

The accuracy of health risk assessments depends on multiple pointers, such as:

• How accurate and well-researched the questionnaire is.
• The responses to the questionnaire.
• Presence of medical or clinical insights in the questionnaire.
• Providing follow-up questionnaires to study the impact of the primary HRA.