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The past two decades have witnessed a transformation in the corporate human resource (HR) function – moving away from a role of balancing multiple interests toward a narrower focus on business objectives – yet we know little about how this change occurred. This study finds that the functional backgrounds of senior HR managers played an important role in determining the changing health benefits of large corporations. Managers with finance backgrounds controlled costs more than those with traditional HR backgrounds and contracted with fewer health plans – yet surprisingly without measured differences in health care quality management. These results suggest that more attention should be paid to the backgrounds of managers in the wider evolution of HR.

This paper aims to explore factors impacting wearable fitness tracking (WFT) device continued usage intention from perspectives of technology attributes (autonomy benefits), health attributes (self-health management benefits, diet-control benefits and health self-efficacy), and consumer attributes (age, gender, technological innovativeness, symbolic benefits, social benefits and hedonic benefits).

The study integrates constructs from the technology acceptance theories and the health promotion model to develop the research model and hypothesis. The empirical analysis was conducted using data from 217 respondents from India. Logistic regression was used to identify factors that discriminate between groups with low and high continued usage intentions.

Results indicate higher continued usage intention for WFT devices is driven by perceived benefits-health, autonomy, social and hedonic, and individual characteristics-technological innovativeness and perceived health self-efficacy. Further, perceived symbolic benefits, diet control benefits, age, and gender does not discriminate between the groups with low and high continued usage intentions.

The results may be limited to the context of the sample and the factors considered. The study suggests future research areas.

The paper offers insights for marketers, governments, insurance firms, and related healthcare services on promoting higher usage of WFT devices to yield dual benefits of preventive healthcare and higher profitability.

The study extends existing research by examining factors across consumer, health, and technological domains in a single framework and adds to the limited research in the context of usage of WFT devices in developing countries.

A healthy and vital workforce is an asset to any organization. Workplace health management and health promotion are therefore increasingly relevant for organizations. This paper aims to identify the organizational benefits companies strive for, and analyzes the ways companies use and manage data in order to monitor, evaluate and improve the achievement of organizational benefits through workplace health management.

A case study was carried out in four frontrunner organizations in health management in The Netherlands. The benefits the companies strived for were systematically investigated, as were the ways in which the companies used and managed their relevant data.

The organizations had many data that were potentially useful for managing and evaluating the realization of the intended health and business benefits. However, these data were only available and usable in a fragmented manner. As a result, the business impact of health interventions was neither properly evaluated nor consistently managed.

The research was limited to four frontrunner companies in The Netherlands. The results presented are predominantly qualitative.

Suggestions for improving the management of organizational benefits from workplace health interventions are given here; they were formulated though an iterative process with the companies involved.

Research on the combination of health and business benefits of workplace health management has been rather limited thus far. The present paper provides a complete picture of the benefits strived for by four Dutch frontrunner organizations, as well as the data available to them, which are or could be used for guiding and improving workplace health management.

This study aims to examine the impact of college students’ health and wellness orientations on the perceived importance of health benefits for an innovative new brand of standing desk, which is hypothesized to positively affect students’ attitudes and intentions. Research in this domain for the college student market is sparse.

An online survey was conducted among business students at a large Midwestern US University, with class credit offered for completion. Of the 325 students given the opportunity to participate, 210 completed the survey.

Health motivation is positively related to calorie reduction importance, whereas wellness orientation is positively related to back health and cognitive enhancement. Calorie reduction and potential cognitive benefits significantly affect attitudes toward standing desks, which positively impact intentions to use, pay a school usage fee and buy the product.

Different health orientation factors are associated with specific health benefits, providing greater insight into consumer attitudinal motivations for health-related products. Future research can further evaluate the generalizability of the results.

Marketers can tailor more effective communications based on underlying consumer motivations for health-related product benefits, resulting in better marketing outcomes.

Obesity is a growing societal issue, which could be ameliorated by improved daily behaviors, including the use of standing desks to assist in countering sedentarism.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, neither academic research has yet examined standing desk purchase decision factors for the college student market, nor the effects of different health orientations on perceived health benefits.

Population, community, and public health notions are addressed separately in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), have different foci and stakeholders, build on different frameworks to achieve their aims, and apply different measures to determine the long-term impact of interventions. This paper attempts to clarify each concept and proposes a method of evaluating each of these sets of health-related activities based on the benefits that accrue to the respective stakeholders.

In addition to indicating how to affect change and improvements in health, the ecological model of health also provides insight into how the benefits from health-related activities may or may not flow back to the entities sponsoring health interventions. By clearly defining each of the concepts and examining the methods and metrics being used to select activities and measure benefits, a valuation model is developed that measures the financial impact on the targeted population as well as the sponsoring institution.

Defining, measuring, and evaluating are important to bring clarity to how individual organizations can contribute to the overall health of the population, as well as the limits of any single organization in doing so. Collective and upstream action will be required to improve the population’s health, but identifying and justifying the role of each participating organization is a challenge that still lacks an overarching vision that can be explained and measured to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

Decision makers must justify how resources are committed in an era of scarcity and limited financial means. Moreover, methods must be in place to measure the impact of potential collaborations. The proposed valuation framework lays out the natural incentives, the responses to those incentives, and how to select initiatives that maximize value from the perspective of the various stakeholders.

The aim of this study is to explore the benefits of choral singing for mental wellbeing and health as perceived by a cross‐national sample of amateur choral singers.

Data consisted of written responses to open‐ended questions. These were derived from 169 participants selected from a larger dataset reporting high and low levels of emotional wellbeing on the WHOQOL‐BREF questionnaire. A majority of participants were female and aged over 50. A thematic analysis was followed by a content analysis and Pearson chi square analyses. Comparisons were made between different ages, genders and nationalities and participants with high and low reported emotional wellbeing.

The analysis revealed multiple themes covering perceived benefits in social, emotional, physical, and cognitive domains. There were no significant differences in frequency of themes across any of the participant sociodemographic and wellbeing categories. The results indicate that benefits of singing may be experienced similarly irrespective of age, gender, nationality or wellbeing status.

Implications for further research include future use of validated instruments to measure outcomes and research into the benefits of singing in other cultures. The results of this study suggest that choral singing could be used to promote mental health and treat mental illness.

This study examines a cross‐national sample which is larger than previous studies in this area. These findings contribute to understanding of the complex and interacting factors which might contribute to wellbeing and health, as well as specific benefits of singing.

In the spirit of Polachek (1975) and the later work of Becker (1985) on the role of specialization within the family, we examine the relationship between fringe benefits and the division of labor within a married household. The provision of fringe benefits is complicated by their non-additive nature within the household, as well as IRS regulations that stipulate that they be offered in a non-discriminatory manner in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. We model family decisions within a framework in which one spouse specializes in childcare and as a result experiences a reduction in market productive capacity. Our model predicts that the forces toward specialization become stronger as the number of children increase, so that the spouse specializing in childcare will have some combination of lower wages, hours worked, and fringe benefits. We demonstrate that to the extent that labor markets are incomplete, the family is less likely to obtain health insurance from the employer of the spouse that specializes in childcare. Using data from the April 1993 CPS we find evidence consistent with our model.

This chapter addresses the economic assessment of health benefits of active transport and presents most recent valuation studies with an overview of progresses made towards the inclusion of health benefits in the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of active transport.

It is built upon the contracted study for the World Health Organization (WHO) on the economic appraisal of health benefits of walking and cycling investments at the city of Viana do Castelo, the former pilot study in Portugal for evaluating the health benefits of non-motorized transport using the WHO Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT). The relative risk values adopted in the HEAT for walking refer to adult population of the age group 20–74 years and the assessment focus in on average physical activity/regular behaviour of groups of pedestrians and all-cause mortality health impacts. During the case study, it was developed and implemented a mobility survey which aimed to collect behavioural data before and after a street intervention in the historic centre.

Most recent appraisal guidance of walking and cycling and health impact modelling studies reviewed confirm that further research is expected before a more comprehensive appraisal procedure can be adopted in Europe, able to integrate physical activity effects along with other health risks such as those related to road traffic injuries and exposure to air pollution.

The health benefits assessment of walking investments helped local decision-makers to progress towards sustainable mobility options in the city. Making the population aware of the potential health benefits of regular walking can encourage more people to uptake active transport as part of their daily activities.

This study provides a useful review of the health benefits of active transport with a comprehensive analysis of valuation studies, presenting value-added information. It then reports a former assessment of the health effects of active transport in the Portuguese context (case study) using the state-of-the-art economic analysis tool (HEAT) of the World Health Organization which is believed to contribute to a paradigm shift in the transport policy and appraisal practice given the need of shaping future cities (and their citizens) for health through more investments in active transport.

Unemployment can negatively affect individuals, their families and communities in various ways. When individuals are out of work may experience mental and physical health problems, material deprivation and poverty. This study aims to examine the impact of unemployment benefits on health and living standards in Turkey.

The authors employ a structural equation modelling (SEM) to consider the simultaneous relationships among the unemployment benefits and the latent variables of health and Standard of Living (SoL). We propose a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design (FRDD) and a Regression Kink Design (RKD) within the SEM framework to infer causality. For the empirical analysis, the authors employ the panel Income and Living Conditions Survey (ILCS) in 2007–2015.

The authors’ findings suggest that those who receive these benefits are more likely to report higher levels of health and improve their living standards compared to the non-recipients. Furthermore, unemployment benefits replacement rates are associated with improved levels in health and living standards. The authors’ results indicate a substantial heterogeneity on the impact of unemployment benefits since males, low educated individuals and those belonging to the lower levels of income are affected more in terms of their health status and living standards.

The majority of earlier studies have focused on the impact of unemployment benefits on labor outcomes. The originality of this study is that we implement the FRDD and RKD within the SEM framework to explore, simultaneously, the impact of unemployment insurance on health and living standards. Moreover, future research studies can implement this framework to infer causality and explore the impact of related policies and reforms.

The aim of this study is to identify and explore consumer preferences and information needs regarding the simultaneous communication of risks and benefits associated with food consumption. The focus is on the net health impact of risks and benefits on life expectancy, quality of life, and disability adjusted life years (DALYs).

Focus groups were conducted in four countries (Iceland, The Netherlands, Portugal, UK). All sessions were audio‐taped, transcribed and content analyzed.

Current risk‐benefit communication is perceived as “asymmetrical”, confusing, and often distrusted. Participants expressed a preference for more balanced and scientifically derived information. Information about the net health impact on both life expectancy and quality of life was found to be meaningful for food decision making. DALYs were thought too complicated.

Findings confirm the importance of incorporating consumers' viewpoints when developing communications about risk and benefits. The results provide insights into potential issues related to the communication of risk and benefit information. The limitations of the qualitative approach adopted in this study suggest that further research utilizing nationally representative samples is needed, which may explore additional metrics to communicate net health effects to consumers.

Common measures for assessing both risks and benefits are expected to facilitate the communication of the results of risk‐benefit assessment as part of risk analysis. However, research incorporating consumers' perspectives on this issue is scarce. A better understanding of how consumers perceive these measures may promote the development of more effective integrated risk benefit communication.