Women’s Health Week 2007: Simple Steps to a Longer, Healthier Life

1. Follow a Healthy Diet: Women should adopt a healthy, balanced diet low in saturated fat and sufficient in vitamins and minerals to improve their health. The CDC recommends five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to ensure appropriate vitamin intake and to reduce the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. Reproductive-aged women should have appropriate folic acid intake (400 mg per day) through vitamin supplement and through foods rich in folate (green leafy vegetables, oranges, fortified grains). Appropriate folic acid intake can reduce a woman's chance of having an neural tube defect (NTD) affected pregnancy by 50%-70%.¹
   
   
2. Maintain a Healthy Weight: Obesity increases the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Obesity among women has significant cost consequences as well.
   
   
   • Obese women (30 to 60 pounds overweight) cost $1,372 more than normal weight women in medical costs and missed work days. Extremely obese women (60 to 100 pounds overweight) cost employers $2,485 more.²
   • Obese women miss one and a half times as many workdays and extremely obese women miss almost three times as many work days as normal weight women.²
3. Go Smoke Free (and Stay Smoke Free!): Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States. Smoking increases the risk of heart disease, cancer, and stroke among men and women alike. Smoking is particularly harmful to reproductive aged women and pregnant women.
   • Women who smoke have an increased risk for delayed conception and fertility problems.³
   • Pregnant women who smoke are at risk for adverse reproductive outcomes (conception delay, preterm delivery, and low birth weight).³
   • The direct healthcare costs from maternal smoking costs the United States $366 million per year ($704 per maternal smoker).³
4. Receive Appropriate Tests, Screenings and Vaccines: Routine exams, screenings, and vaccines can prevent disease, identify diseases at earlier, more treatable stages, and improve the chances of treatment and recovery. Researchers estimate that preventable chronic conditions (diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc.) account for 75% of all healthcare costs.^4-6 Screenings and immunizations should be conducted based on certain criteria such as age and risk factors. For more information about preventive services (tests, screenings, & vaccines) please refer to A Purchaser's Guide to Clinical Preventive Services.
   
   
5. Practice Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors: Healthy lifestyle behaviors are a key component to maintaining one's health. In addition to eating a healthy diet and staying smoke free, women should practice the following lifestyle behaviors to ensure better health:
   
   
   • Daily physical activity - Women should get at least 30 minutes of physical exercise a day to reduce their chances of developing chronic disease such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
   • Wear a seatbelt - An average of 6,600 women die in traffic accidents and over 900, 000 are injured each year in the United States. In 2000, employers spent $7.7 billion for healthcare related motor vehicle crash injuries was $7.7 billion.⁷ Injuries related to seatbelt non-use by employees and their dependents cost employers $3.9 billion that same year.⁷

• Promote healthy diet habits by offering healthy options in onsite cafeterias and vending machines. Highlighting healthy food choices encourages employees to make better decisions when it comes to meals and snacks. Employers may want to consider subsidizing healthy meal options to further encourage healthy eating choices.
  
  
• Offering on-site smoking cessation programs or access to off-site programs. Smoking cessation programs are relatively low-cost and have significant financial returns in the long run. A study by Harvard Medical researcher Daniel Levy PhD, showed that smoking cessation programs are cost- effective, and employers and insurers could begin to see the benefits as early as three years after they add smoking cessation programs.⁸
  
  
• Work with the health plan to cover screenings & immunizations in full or with a nominal co-payment. Offering a benefit that allows employees to receive screenings with no or nominal co-payments eliminates financial barriers to preventive care. Screening for risk factors is cost-effective, and makes financial sense for employers to implement. For more information, please refer to A Purchaser's Guide to Clinical Preventive Services.
  
  
• Make health promotion programs accessible and affordable. Access to various health promotion tools such as nutritional counseling and smoking cessation programs encourage employees to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors, and can provide significant health benefits and cost savings by preventing future disease. Offering these programs onsite helps eliminate any geographical barriers and allows employees to participate at convenient times (lunch hour, after work, etc.). Eliminating financial barriers that prevent employees from participating may boost participation in such programs.