This meta-analysis moves beyond the previous reported quantitative syntheses by greatly expanding the search strategies to ensure a more comprehensive synthesis, addressing both physical activity behavior and health outcomes, examining work-related outcomes, and conducting exploratory moderator analyses. 3 A 1996 meta-analysis synthesized data for diverse adults and reported a workplace effect size consistent with a standardized mean difference of 0.35. The authors noted their attempted moderator analyses suffered from inadequate statistical power. One 1998 meta-analysis of 26 studies reported an effect size consistent with a standardized mean difference of 0.22, which was not significantly different from 0.
11 Two previous meta-analyses addressed physical activity behavior outcomes across some studies included in this project. Several previous narrative reviews were limited in scope and unable to address either the magnitude of outcomes or potential workplace moderators of outcomes, 4, 5, 9, 10 The broadest narrative review was conducted using studies published before 1995. 4 This meta-analysis addresses the need to quantitatively synthesize the rapidly growing literature reporting workplace physical activity programs.ĭespite the potential health and economic benefits of worksite health promotion, 2 no previous comprehensive meta-analysis has summarized health and physical activity behavior outcomes from these programs. 6 – 8 Workplace programs may be especially important because the imbalance between physical activity and energy intake at work may contribute to the obesity epidemic. 3 – 5 Convenience, group support, existing patterns of formal and informal communication among employees in a worksite, and possible corporate behavior norms are potential advantages of worksite programs over other approaches. 2 Since employed adults spend about half of their workday waking hours at workplaces, offering physical activity programs at work may be an efficient strategy to increase physical actvity.
1 Workplaces may implement physical programs in hopes of keeping workers healthy and reducing healthcare costs.
Although strong evidence shows that exercisers are healthier than nonexercisers, most adults do not perform enough physical activity to achieve health and well-being benefits.
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