CDC Response to OMB questions

CDC Response to OMB questions for 0920-14BE: The CDC Worksite Health Scorecard

4-9-14

Q: “Would you please ask the Program to provide a fuller discussion of how CDC plans to use the data collected through the Scorecards and any specific data analysis plans that they have for the data?

There is currently a lot of discussion around how the Scorecards will be useful to participating establishments but there is less info in the supporting statements related to CDC’s plans for the data.”

CDC’s response includes more detailed narrative for sections A.2 and A.16 of supporting statement A as well as providing a complete sample benchmarking report that would be generated by the system and providing to participating employers.

2. Purpose and Use of the Data

CDC intends to use the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard data collected from employer participants to:

1. Provide feedback and support the implementation efforts of employers participating in the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard.

1. Improve technical assistance given to participating employers.

1. Employers will be encouraged to retake the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard assessment annually over the three year period. Each submission will generate a new a benchmarking report (See Attachment C-3) to demonstrate progress in adopting effective workplace health strategies over time. The benchmarking report will provide valuable information to the employers that can be used to plan and evaluate development of their workplace health programs. Information contained in the benchmarking report includes:

• Comparisons between the current year score and prior year score by health topic. Arrow icons will show score increases (green) or decreases (red) from the prior year indicating areas of improvement or gaps in service that the workplace health team can use to report progress to leadership; plan the next year’s workplace health program activities; and inform and educate employees about the organization’s health promotion program offerings.

• Comparisons in the current year between multiple worksites within the same organization; a single worksite against all other worksites of similar size; a single worksite against all other users of the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard system regardless of size. Large organization with multiple worksite in different geographic areas or representing different business units can offer a different mix of workplace health programs, policies, and practices. Comparisons among all worksites in a single organization will allow the employer to understand the health promotion access points and opportunities available to different workforce sub-populations. The employer can use this information to better manage overall infrastructure investments so that workplace health program are uniformly administered; create competition among different departments or business units to improve scorecard results; or link individual worksite scorecard results to other internal data such as employee engagement/ participation in workplace health programs; employee health status, or program satisfaction to understand best practices that can be replicated in other parts of the larger organization. Comparisons among all other worksite of similar size allow employers to benchmark their scorecard progress against users of the system who are more likely to have similar levels of capacity, resources, and experience similar barriers and obstacles to workplace health program development. Lastly, comparisons among all other users of the system provide respondents the opportunity to see how they are doing in specific health areas or overall with employers in different states, industries, and sizes.

2. CDC will review benchmarking report data and work with employer respondents to provide education, training, and technical assistance to assist employers in identifying areas of opportunity to improve or expand their workplace health programs. CDC Worksite Health Scorecard results can be used to prioritize strategies as users set near- and long-term goals for developing their worksite’s health promotion program. Scores can identify gaps in the worksite’s health promotion program (that is, topic areas where the organization currently has few strategies in place). CDC technical assistance and support will include working with employer to:

• Identify the highest impact strategies not currently in place at your worksite.

• Use this information and the employer’s scores to prioritize future strategies that are relevant, feasible, and consistent with the organization’s and employee’s needs, health issues, and health promotion budget.

• Identify which of the priority strategies are feasible for short- or long-term accomplishment.

Employers will then be directed to CDC tools and resource to support the implementation of the priority strategies and interventions that have been selected. An example of one resource document is provided as Attachment C-4.

2. Allow for comparisons among employer cohorts receiving various levels of CDC workplace health program support.

CDC is currently working with cohorts of employers through the National Healthy Worksite (OMB #0920-0965) and Work@Health Programs (OMB #0920-1006). These programs share a common goal of providing support to employers to build effective and sustainable comprehensive workplace health programs. Each program utilizes a separate strategy to provide this support. The National Healthy Worksite Program is built around an intensive, onsite support model for employers where professionally trained staff are embedded locally with participating employers to advise and consult on workplace health program development. The Work@Health program operationalizes program support through professional formal training, structured ongoing technical assistance, and seed funding support. This approach is less intensive. Important outcome measures of each program are changes in organizational programs, policies, and practices that result from the method of support and assistance provided. These organizational outcomes are measured utilizing the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard. New users of the online version of the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard who are directed to online workplace health program tools and resources (e.g., Attachment C-4), archived webinars and educational content, CDC technical assistance, and those users who will not receive funding support in terms of staffing (National Healthy Worksite) or seed funding (Work@Health) will be compared in terms of overall score progression over three years. Individual topic scores related to individual health risks or conditions of which specific online information, tools, and resources exist will also be monitored to develop specific tools, resources, and guidance to support tailored workplace health program efforts in priority health areas and how those tools improve individual health risk or condition scores over time.

3. CDC will use this information to refine key success elements and best practices in workplace health to operationalize future surveillance activities in framing potential questions that represent important elements of effective program.

Although a number of national and local level studies and surveys have been conducted over the past 25 years examining aspects of workplace health promotion and protection programs, there has not been to date a systematic and ongoing effort to document the evidenced-based and best practice strategies and interventions at the individual employee and organizational level that uses a comprehensive workplace health program. The last such effort, the National Worksite Health Promotion Survey, was conducted in 2004 by the Partnership for Prevention and Watson Wyatt Worldwide, with the support of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The first national worksite health promotion survey was conducted in 1985, and follow-up benchmark surveys were conducted in 1992, 1999, and 2004. The 2004 National Worksite Health Promotion Survey assessed the prevalence of worksite health promotion programs, policies, services, and supportive environments. The few national assessments of workplace health promotion that have been conducted have tended to focus on individual employee outcomes rather than considering the organization as the unit of analysis.

The online CDC Worksite Health Scorecard is an important step in building an infrastructure that can inform the development of regular nationally representative surveys on employer workplace health program. Working with employer respondents to review benchmarking data, providing technical assistance, and monitoring organizational changes over time from a convenience sample of employers can identify focus and emerging areas of employer workplace health programs that would form core components of ongoing survey questions. The ease and convenience of using an online reporting system with the benefit to the respondent of receiving immediate feedback and results (e.g., benchmarking report) may be leveraged for developing sampling frames, increasing response rates, facilitating data entry and coding, and organizing and analyzing results for a future larger, representative national survey.

Table 16A. Project Assessment Time Schedule

Respondents/Sources	Method	Content	Timing/Frequency	Attachment #
OMB Approval – Interested Employers/Gatekeeper Organizations
OMB Approval	N/A	N/A	spring 2014 (estimated) for launch of web application	N/A
Interested Employers who would benefit from conducting an organizational assessment of their workplace health program	Email distribution lists; website; targeted communications; meetings/conferences; teleconferences; webinars	Marketing and outreach of the CDC Worksite Health Scorecard to describe the system, process, benefits to participation, and frequently asked questions (FAQ)	Initiated with launch of web application; ongoing	N/A
OMB Approval - Survey Instruments / Assessments (estimated)
OMB Approval	N/A	N/A	spring 2014 (estimated) for survey instrument	N/A
Employer Information:
Employers (All worksites)	CDC Worksite Health Scorecard online instrument	Status of worksite policy/practices/programs across priority health areas	Annually	C-1; C-2
Employers (All worksites)	Technical Assistance	Review benchmarking data, lend support to program planning (strategy/intervention prioritization) and implementation through education, access to online tools and resources	Quarterly	C-3; C-4