Problems in the evaluation of occupational health promotion programs: a case analysis

This study investigates, in a case study setting, whether participation in the Kimberly-Clark Corporation Health and Weight Loss Program can be associated with reduced participant health care claims. A pretest, post-test comparison group research design is utilized to ascertain whether there have been any measurable health care cost savings for participants versus their non-participating matched employee counterparts. The significance of any measured differences is then tested through analysis of variance and analysis of covariance. In addition, results are reported from tests designed to assess whether any specific employee subpopulations appeared to differentially benefit from program participants in terms of reduced health care cost incurrence. Finally, tests are run to provide further assurance that those potential test subjects who were excluded from the final sample did not systematically differ from the final sample subjects. This paper also illustrates, with references to the present study, the difficulties of adapting behavioral and social science research techniques to actual occupational health promotion settings.