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This article discusses the benefits of physical activity on brain health and emphasizes the importance of integrating physical activity promotion into workplace health promotion efforts. Regular physical activity has positive effects on mental health and cognitive function, and it can reduce the risk of cognitive decline. The article highlights the relationship between physical activity and brain health, including its impact on anxiety, depression, cognition, dementia, and other neurological conditions. It also suggests strategies for integrating physical activity into worksite health promotion, such as policy and systems changes, benchmarking, and scorecards. The article concludes by calling for further research to provide specific physical activity prescriptions for improving cognition and reducing the risk of neurological conditions. [Extracted from the article]

Recent industry surveys indicate that a majority of employers are offering health and well-being (HWB) programs to their employees,[1],[2] but the reasons for offering them have changed over time. Metrics which are directly related can be positioned most proximal to the central key metric while indirectly related metrics might be positioned in the outer periphery and linked to the more proximal metrics to indicate how their influence is realized. Executive leaders are likely to be interested in business performance and financial impact metrics, but it is important to demonstrate how leading process indicators such as program utilization and satisfaction rates as well as health outcomes influence these metrics. The Value Demonstration Dashboard organizes the meaningful metrics into a narrative about how the metrics are related to one another and link the HWB initiative to broader organizational goals. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: This study tested relationships between health and well-being best practices and 3 types of outcomes.Design: A cross-sectional design used data from the HERO Scorecard Benchmark Database.Setting: Data were voluntarily provided by employers who submitted web-based survey responses.Sample: Analyses were limited to 812 organizations that completed the HERO Scorecard between January 12, 2015 and October 2, 2017.Measures: Independent variables included organizational and leadership support, program comprehensiveness, program integration, and incentives. Dependent variables included participation rates, health and medical cost impact, and perceptions of organizational support.Analysis: Three structural equation models were developed to investigate the relationships among study variables.Results: Model sample size varied based on organizationally reported outcomes. All models fit the data well (comparative fit index > 0.96). Organizational and leadership support was the strongest predictor (P < .05) of participation (n = 276 organizations), impact (n = 160 organizations), and perceived organizational support (n = 143 organizations). Incentives predicted participation in health assessment and biometric screening (P < .05). Program comprehensiveness and program integration were not significant predictors (P > .05) in any of the models.Conclusion: Organizational and leadership support practices are essential to produce participation, health and medical cost impact, and perceptions of organizational support. While incentives influence participation, they are likely insufficient to yield downstream outcomes. The overall study design limits the ability to make causal inferences from the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]