Preventing substance abuse as an integral part of worksite health promotion

Problems of substance abuse damage the well-being of many workers and drain substantial resources from the organization. While companies have adopted drug testing to screen out drug users and employee assistance programs to provide services to troubled workers, serious substance abuse prevention strategies have been virtually ignored. The authors describe some of the obstacles to implementing substance abuse programs. Attempts to integrate these programs into worksite health promotion are described and a model for a health-oriented substance abuse program is presented.