OEA Choice

Why is a healthy school workforce important?

mike — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:42:38 +0000

Employee Health Matters in Oregon Schools and school employee wellness is not just a fringe benefit. It’s essential to achieving the primary goal of education-to ensure student academic success. A healthy school staff reduces costs and stress. It also increases productivity at a time when schools are under enormous pressure to do more with less. School employees make up a large percentage of Oregon’s workforce, and they play an enormous role in their students’ lives. While under the care of educators and other staff, children learn life skills that help them become successful, productive and healthy community members. “When teachers are healthy and on their game every day, we are more effective at achieving our educational goals and promoting student success” Barry Nemec, Special Education Director, Baker School District. There is a clear need for employee wellness in Oregon schools.

The 2011 Oregon Behavioral Risk Factor Survey for School Employees showed that:

56% of school staff are overweight or obese.
Only 30% eat the recommended five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables
90% are trying to maintain or lose weight
5% currently smoke
13% reported current depression

“If we have healthier educators working with our students, we’re becoming true role models,” said Gail Rasmussen, president of the Oregon Education Association. “We’re helping our students understand that it’s important to be responsible for our lifestyle early on, rather than waiting until we find ourselves with some health condition we could have avoided.”

The Oregon Dental Association Presents “The Brushy”

mike — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 03:34:23 +0000

The Oregon Dental Association has launched their ‘Teach Me How to Brushy‘ public service campaign! You can watch the video, aimed at communicating the importance of establishing healthy dental habits at an early age, at www.teachmehowtobrushy.com.

Worksite Wellness Webinar

mike — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:58:33 +0000

Don’t miss this educational opportunity for worksite wellness…click on the logo below to register and invite your wellness team to join you or watch on your own. This is the beginning of a 5 part webinar series that will focus on key elements of an effective worksite wellness program and will include tools and resources you can use!

WELCOA (Wellness Council of America)

mike — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:44:04 +0000

Below are two links to articles about incentive use in wellness programs. The first article is from WELCOA (Wellness Council of America) and the second is from ODS. The definition of incentive is: A motivating influence; stimulus and serving to incite to action. Most wellness programs are voluntary and providing incentives can increase participation and motivate individuals to make healthy lifestyle changes. Incentives can also create negative actions with individuals going to extreme measures to “win”, thus developing unhealthy behaviors. Incentive use should be well thought out, calculated and planned to initiate and sustain healthy behavioral changes.

Important: Please check with your entity about rules and regulations concerning incentive use.

http://welcoa.org/freeresources/pdf/aa_vol4_no7_jul05.pdf

http://www.odscompanies.com/pdfs/wellness/incentives.pdf

ODS Well@work Resources

mike — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:47:02 +0000

ODS Well@work provides resources and tools to support your health and wellness programs and interventions. These are free resources available to all and are “turn-key” campaigns being that the materials are already created for you. The Well@work links are below:

The ODS Well@work Employer Toolkit is designed to encourage the discussion of workplace wellness, assist in creating or sustaining a wellness program, and provide useful resources.

Our Well@work Health Promotion Campaigns, focused on various health topics, put targeted, comprehensive wellness campaigns at your fingertips. Print-ready collateral such as table tents, flyers and email blasts help you communicate clearly and effectively with your employees, inspiring them to take charge of their health.

Get Vertical: And Don’t Take Back Pain Lying Down!

mike — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:53:32 +0000

The Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality initiative are launching a campaign called “Get Vertical: And Don’t Take Back Pain Lying Down!” It’s estimated that 4 out of 5 people in the U.S. will have low back pain during their lives and most pain is caused by a strain on muscles and ligaments. Partner for Quality Care has developed a consumer booklet and interactive, online quiz to help Oregonians better understand safe and effective care for low back pain. All the information can be found at www.PartnerforQualityCare.org/lowbackpain .

Get Vertical is sponsored by Partner for Quality Care, a program of the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality initiative.

Fitness/Stress Relief Rooms

mike — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:32:40 +0000

South Coast ESD’s “Walk Away Stress Free” wellness program used grant dollars to create a “Stress Relief Room” which is equipped with 2 treadmills, elliptical machine, yoga mats, flat screen T.V., DVD’s, and chair and leg massage machines. Employees have access to the workout room throughout the workday and the wellness coordinators are analyzing usage by having each person sign in before using the equipment.

South Coast ESD’s Workout Area

South Coast ESD’s Leg Massager South Coast ESD’s Chair Massager

Port Orford School District’s wellness grant “Catch the 2CJ Wellness Wave” also used grant dollars to create a workout room that would compare against most gyms. It includes” elliptical machines, treadmill, exercise bike, yoga mats, stability balls, free weights, bench press machine, and a flat screen T.V. Port Orford is a small community on the southern Oregon coast with limited resources to fitness equipment, but by creating a fitness room on-site employees have unlimited access with no gym membership fee. South Coast ESD and Port Orford School District are creating a healthy environment at the worksite and using fitness equipment as a way to sustain the program.

Port Orford Exercise Equipment Room

Resource Guide on Health Care Consumerism – 3rd Edition

mike — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:42:32 +0000

A Resource Guide on Health Care Consumerism has been updated on our website. This is the third edition of the consumerism guide with many new articles and information from financial planning to the advantages of breast feeding. The guide is intended to raise your awareness on issues that may affect you and your lifestyle. The Resources page contains the link to the Resource Guide on Health Care Consumerism . Also, on the Resources page there is a link to the 2011-12 Health Observant Dates which are special days, weeks, or months used to raise awareness on certain health topics.

Tooth Taxi

mike — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 04:05:05 +0000

Blog: September 2011

A new tab has been created on our website and the new tab is “Tooth Taxi”. Created through a unique partnership and the generous support of OEA Choice Trust, The Dental Foundation of Oregon and ODS, the Tooth Taxi is a mobile state of the art dental clinic, which is a 38 foot mobile unit that includes two operatory units. Annually the Tooth Taxi visits approximately 50 sites, serves 3,000 children and provides more than $700,000 in donated dental services. Please click on our new tab www.oeachoice.com/news-events/tooth-taxi and learn more about the Tooth Taxi and the Dental Foundation of Oregon. The following is a quote from a Tooth Taxi host: “The Tooth Taxi staff provide a great service to the kids of our community. They’re great with kids and it’s a safe, welcoming environment. I’m proud to host the Tooth Taxi at my school.” (Principal Mathew Ihle, Chenowith Elementary, North Wasco County SD)

Portion Sizes

mike — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 21:17:17 +0000

The website http://kgwlivewell.com/ has a colorful short video on portion size changes over the years. Research shows the people unintentionally overeat and consume more calories when given larger portion sizes. When you look at the chart below see if you’re surprised at how small one serving is, especially the butter and cheese! Click on the link below to take a short portion distortion quiz and test your portion knowledge.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/downloads/portion-quiz.pdf