Rewarding Healthy Behaviors: Variation in Health Risk Across Industries Among American Workers

Faced with an unsustainable growth in health care costs, both employers and policymakers have begun to consider the potential savings that might be achieved by investments in health promotion and better access to preventive care. There has also been public discussion about the potential of building financial incentives for healthy behaviors and the use of prevention services into health plans.

Creating the right incentives is a challenge however, because experience is so limited and healthy behaviors among workers vary widely. To illustrate the range of differences, this issue brief specifically describes the variation among workers across large industry groups in these key areas: family income, health risk factors, education, language, and access to basic health care where preventive services are provided.

Issue Brief (.pdf)