Psychometric Properties of the Perceptions of Wellness and Environment Culture Scale

Purpose: Healthy workplace cultures are an essential element to encouraging healthy lifestyle behaviors in faculty and staff in academic communities. Tools and health promotion programs typically used by employers for population health management include extensive awareness building through health education, health risk assessments (HRAs), risk reduction interventions, health coaching, disease management, vaccinations, web-enabled communications, social networking, establishment of data warehouses, and the use of incentives. A healthy organization cultivates a culture of respect within a community that supports personal and professional growth, open communication, and shared values. A workplace culture that includes an emphasis on wellness can benefit the organization in reduced absenteeism, reduced presenteeism, reduced injuries, and reduced healthcare-related costs. An assessment of the perceived current wellness culture and the environment is able to provide important information about where the organization is and the key areas to target with intervention strategies for improvement.

Methods: An 11 item culture and environment survey was developed and disseminated to faculty and staff in a large public academic institution in the Midwest United States.

Results: 97% of faculty/staff responded to the survey items. Construct validity of the scale was established through factor analysis. Cronbach’s alpha exceeded .80. The majority of respondents (67%) perceived the university to have a culture and environment that promotes health and wellness; 56% believed senior leadership is actively engaged in promoting and role modeling health and wellness; and 57% agreed they have a higher overall wellbeing because of working for the institution. 

Conclusion:

A workplace perceived wellness culture scale can be useful for serving as a baseline for future evaluation; for determining a worksite’s strengths; to help draw attention to areas in need of improvement; and it can highlight opportunities to make the worksite more supportive of healthy behaviors (e.g., healthy food in vending machines, no smoking policies, or encouraging walking during break times).