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The goal of this review is to present the literature which provides evidence of the association between health risks and the workplace economic measures of time away from work, reduced productivity at work, health care costs and pharmaceutical costs.

A search of PubMed was conducted which combined the keyword search terms “health risks” with “health costs”, “pharmaceutical costs”, “absenteeism”, “productivity”, “workers compensation”, and “presenteeism”. High quality studies were selected and combined with studies known to the authors.

A strong body of evidence exists which shows that health risks of employees are associated with health care costs and pharmaceutical costs. A growing body of literature also confirms that health risks are associated with the productivity measures of time away from work, workers' compensation, absenteeism and presenteeism. Furthermore, studies have shown that changes in risks are associated with changes in health care costs, time‐away‐from‐work and presenteeism.

The paper shows that measures of success will continue to be important as the field of worksite health management moves forward. Research needs to progress beyond simple associations to the evaluation of changes in costs, trends and transitions over time.

Depression and other mental health disorders have a large impact on the quality of life and productivity of millions of individuals worldwide. For employers, mental health disorders are associated with increased health care costs as well as productivity losses in the form of absenteeism, short‐term disability absences and reduced on‐the‐job productivity‐known as presenteeism. The purpose of this paper is to review the association of worker productivity and mental health.

This review summarizes the literature on the prevalence of mental health conditions among working adults, and the association between these disorders and productivity. Finally, the impact of interventions or workplace policies on the productivity of those suffering with mental health conditions is covered and recommendations for employers are suggested.

Depressive disorders are relatively common in most workforces compared to other mental health conditions. The majority of studies on mental health and productivity have been conducted as part of nationwide surveys or in patient populations rather than worksites. The majority of studies show associations between mental health conditions and absenteeism (particularly short‐term disability absences). When presenteeism is measured by a validated questionnaire, results show that depression significantly impacts on‐the‐job productivity (presenteeism). Studies also indicate that the treatment expenditures for employees with depression may be offset by reductions in absenteeism, disability and on the job productivity losses.

Workplace policies and benefits which support employees suffering with mental health disorders and provide access to evidenced‐based care adhering to best practice guidelines may improve the quality of life of employees and lead to reduced absenteeism, disability and lost productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to document the total return on investment (ROI) of a comprehensive worksite health program from 1999 to 2007 through two different analytic approaches.

Two analytical techniques were used: time period analysis and historical trend analysis of the entire study period. The time‐period analysis of ROI was performed among employees in four time periods: 1999‐2001; 2002‐2003, 2004‐2005; and 2006‐2007. The historical trend analysis on participation‐related savings was used to compare the financial trend differences between participants and non‐participants as well as the three different participation levels of continuous, sporadic, and non‐participants since the year 2000 among 2,753 employees who worked for and were covered by the company‐sponsored health plans for the entire study period.

The ROI from health care costs and time away from work ranged from 1.29 to 2.07 for the four time periods with a cumulative ROI of 1.66 over nine years. The historical trend analysis of 2,753 long‐term employees resulted in a 1.57 ROI for 2,036 program participants (t‐test: p<0.005) with statistically significant annual saving of $180 per participant per year.

The returns on comprehensive worksite health program were greater than the program investment as documented by both time‐period and historical trend analyses. Organizations seeking ways to manage the increases in health care and absenteeism costs of employees will be encouraged to see that positive returns can be generated by investments in employee health and wellness and steady or consistent participation is one key to generating success.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a mail‐based educational intervention to improve knowledge of blood pressure and cholesterol values among members of a large insurance population.

As part of the 2004 health risk appraisal (HRA) follow‐up program, 48,429 members of WEA Trust received at least two mailings for the mail‐based blood pressure and cholesterol intervention. These members then completed a follow‐up HRA in 2006. Change in the knowledge and risks of blood pressure and cholesterol values were analyzed among two‐time participants. A survey was also completed six to nine months after the first mailing to study participants' awareness and perception of the program.

The 2004 and 2006 two‐time HRA participants showed a 13.9 percentage point gain (p<0.05) and 12.2 percentage point gain (p<0.05) in people who knew their blood pressure and cholesterol values, respectively, as well as a significant increase in the percent of people taking medication or under medical care for their blood pressure (+2.9 for overall and +11.3 for BP≥140/90 population; p<0.05) or cholesterol conditions (+3.8 for overall and +11.4 for cholesterol≥240 population; p<0.05). Among those who knew their values (BP or cholesterol) in both 2004 and 2006, there was a 3.9 percentage point increase (p<0.05) in the number of people with normal BP (BP<120/80 mmHg) and a 4.8 percentage point increase (p<0.05) in the number of people with normal cholesterol (cholesterol <200 mg/dL) in 2006. The majority (83 percent) of survey respondents found the materials useful for improving health and 22 percent contacted a physician because of the information they received.

This relatively low‐cost and easily implemented educational intervention was successful in increasing knowledge of blood pressure and cholesterol values, taking control of blood pressure and cholesterol risks and in encouraging appropriate follow‐up with a physician.

Knowledge of blood pressure and cholesterol numbers are an important first step in raising awareness of a person's health risks and disease status.

Purpose – Researchers use the concept of biosociality and a disability studies framework of empowerment to present and analyze examples of community formation and participation for youth with pediatric multiple sclerosis.

Methodology – The data were collected using participant observation, individual and focus group interviews during Teen Adventure Camps held in the summers of 2004–2009 and an Educational Transition Retreat held in the fall of 2008.

Findings – Evidence of community formation and identification include the development of formal and informal systems for mutual support and mentoring, as well as transformations in self-perception and collective identity. Challenges to community formation include differing perspectives about disability-pride vs. diagnosis-specific affiliations.

Research implications – This research indicates that there are many pathways to individual and community identification which may include and even intertwine both diagnosis-specific and disability-pride approaches. The process of community formation is transformative, thus preferences with regard to community identification should not be considered stable, but rather understood as a developmental process that may change over time.

Originality/value of paper – Building upon social and minority group theories, this research moved beyond social critique to develop and implement strategies for community development, individual, and group empowerment.

Academic outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain poor, especially in the area of reading, in particular, reading comprehension. In recent years, researchers have begun to investigate subcomponent skills of reading comprehension for children with ASD in order to better understand its development and potential interventions to enhance outcomes. This chapter highlights the current knowledge in the field in regards to the key cognitive and language skills associated with reading development for individuals with ASD. These include emergent-literacy skills, word-reading and decoding, reading fluency, oral language, and social cognition. Additionally, the chapter makes suggestions for future research in this area, in particular the need to conduct research to establish evidence-based practices to better support the syndrome-specific reading needs for this population.

Academics and the business community are interested in learning how social media can benefit (or harm) consumer‐brand engagement. As more branding activity goes social, marketers are not always welcome in all social media spaces. In this invited commentary, the authors aim to lay out the challenges that social media faces for enhancing consumer‐brand engagement. In doing so, they seek to turn social media challenges into future research directions.

The paper reviews prior literature on social media and brand engagement.

The majority of social media marketing initiatives take the form of communicating sales promotions to already engaged consumers.

Marketers need to find ways to use social media to create lasting brand engagement rather than to merely utilize this communication technology to enhance short‐term revenue.

This critical review provides marketing academics and practitioners avenues for future research and applied considerations. It is an adaptation and extension of Schultz's 2013 paper.

The learning outcomes sought by social studies educators emphasize critical thinking, deep content knowledge, and an understanding of how knowledge in the disciplines of social studies is created and changes. Achieving these outcomes, calls for a more active, collaborative, and student-centered pedagogy. The reported study seeks to better understand the nature of student engagement in this kind of pedagogy by closely examining student discourse during instruction. The study reveals while academic tasks were well thought out and, on the surface, constructivist in nature; student discourse was almost entirely oriented toward producing good products with little thinking aimed at exploring the meanings and relationships among content. The study also demonstrates that redesigning the nature of classroom tasks, by presenting students with problems that necessitate thinking about how content is inter-related, results in readily discernable deepening of student discourse.

The effect of affect in accounting contexts has recently attracted interest, but numerous questions still remain. Given that affect can significantly impact a variety of accounting judgments and decisions in theoretically different manners, the purpose of this synthesis is to understand the state of extant accounting literature in affect and identify directions for future research.

This synthesis systematically reviews experimental accounting papers related to affect in both theoretical and functional respects. The authors first elaborate on the affect infusion theory as the theoretical foundation for the synthesis. The authors then present the sampling method. In Section 4, the authors conceptually and factually summarize affect accounting papers in terms of four major functional areas: auditing, managerial/corporate accounting, tax and financial accounting. The implications of moderators examined in some papers are also discussed. Finally, the authors conclude by revisiting the importance of affect in accounting contexts.

Throughout the synthesis, the authors provide future research opportunities with respect to theories, each functional area and other gaps in the accounting literature.

This synthesis contributes to the accounting literature by providing a pathway to understand the development of accounting research on affect, integrating theoretical foundations and offering future research opportunities to advance the literature.

This study aims to demonstrate how pressures (incentives) in the audit environment can lower audit quality because of a breakdown between professionally skeptical (PS) judgment (risk assessment) and PS action (testing).

The authors used a Qualtrics-based experiment with attitude change as a proxy measure of cognitive dissonance (CD). The authors analyze the results using a one-way independent between-group ANOVA with post hoc tests and t-tests.

The authors find that auditors experience CD when they fail to take appropriate high PS action (audit tests) that are in line with high PS judgment (risk assessments). The motivational force to reduce CD drives auditors to revise their assessments upward (rank higher), lower diagnostic audit tests (PS actions) and lower risk assessments (PS judgments). This leads to lower overall professional skepticism, and hence lower audit quality.

This investigation provides an empirical investigation of Nelson’s (2009) model of professional skepticism and demonstrates a specific mechanism for how incentives in the audit environment lower audit quality. Based on the findings, treatments to enhance audit quality can benefit by strengthening the critical link between PS judgments (risk assessments) and PS actions (audit tests).