Impact of health professionals on health promotion activities in Japanese worksites

Abstract

We tried to assess the impact of health staff on health promotion activities in Japanese worksites. We surveyed all worksites with 50 or more employees in Kagawa Prefecture, western Japan through self-administered questionnaires. We constructed a general linear model that contained three health professions, occupational physicians, health supervisors and occupational health nurses, which are common in the Japanese workplace as co- regressors, and fourteen health promotion activities as dependent variables. The impact of occupational physicians was small. The impact of health supervisors was considered high in workplace defined activities. The impact of occupational health nurses was considered high in person-to-person services and life-style related activities. Through assessing the impact, the strengths and weaknesses of each health professional were clarified.