Countering Workplace Wellness Bias Through Wellness-Legal Partnerships

In the current United States economy, wellness is predominantly marketed to society's privileged individuals, catering to a mostly white and high-income clientele. When marginalized communities encounter wellness services, such as in the workplace, they are faced with an implicitly biased industry. These biases include an emphasis on individual behavior change without considering social determinants of health (SDOH), cultural appropriation of wellness activities for capitalistic gain, use of biased health measures like Body-Mass Index (BMI), and constant images of and expectations of achieving a stereotypical healthy body. The legal community must wake up to these biases and advocate for more equitable wellness services. Wellness-Legal Partnerships (WLPs) are one type of tool that lawyers can use to address inequities baked into current workplace wellness programming. Specifically, lawyers can create WLPs through existing Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) at Certified B Corporations to address SDOH. Part I of this paper explores the current state of the wellness industry and how the biases of emphasizing individual behavior, cultural appropriation of wellness activities, use of BMI and broadcasting the stereotypical healthy body image adversely impact historically marginalized people. Part II examines workplace wellness programs and how those programs not only incorporate the biases prevalent in the wider wellness industry, but how workplace wellness laws under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) arguably encourage them to do so. Part III explores the history and legal framework of EAPs and their current use by employers and employees. Part III introduces the concept of WLPs by describing the WLP role model, Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) and how WLPs can adopt many of the same MLP concepts and apply them to workplace wellness programs. Then, this Part offers a roadmap on how to start implementing WLPs in workplace wellness programs to demonstrate how these partnerships can not only address SDOH faced by employees, but also offer broader advocacy services by lawyers dedicated to addressing the multiple biases that currently exist in wellness services.