Worksite Health Promotion for Low-Wage Workers: A Scoping Literature Review

To determine: (1) What research has been done on health promotion interventions for low-wage workers and (2) what factors are associated with effective low-wage workers' health promotion programs.

This review includes articles from PubMed and PsychINFO published in or before July 2016. Study Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria: The search yielded 130 unique articles, 35 met the inclusion criteria: (1) being conducted in the United States, (2) including an intervention or empirical data around health promotion among adult low-wage workers, and (3) measuring changes in low-wage worker health.

Central features of the selected studies were extracted, including the theoretical foundation; study design; health promotion intervention content and delivery format; intervention-targeted outcomes; sample characteristics; and work, occupational, and industry characteristics.

Consistent with a scoping review, we used a descriptive, content analysis approach to analyze extracted data. All authors agreed upon emergent themes and 2 authors independently coded data extracted from each article.

The results suggest that the research on low-wage workers' health promotion is limited, but increasing, and that low-wage workers have limited access to and utilization of worksite health promotion programs.

Workplace health promotion programs could have a positive effect on low-wage workers, but more work is needed to understand how to expand access, what drives participation, and which delivery mechanisms are most effective.