The effects of a worksite health promotion program on the wives of fire fighters

One method of increasing the cost-effectiveness of worksite health promotion programs is to develop programs that also have an impact on risk factors of family members and friends of the employees. In this study, 41 wives of fire fighters were interviewed concerning changes the fire fighters and they had made in their health habits--exercise, weight, and consumption of fats, fruits/vegetables, and cereal/whole grain breads--in the previous year. Thirty-two were wives of fire fighters who had received a worksite health promotion program and nine were wives of fire fighters who had not yet received the program. Findings of our exploratory study strongly suggest that wives of fire fighters who received information were more aware of the program (93% vs 56%), had greater exposure to the written diet plan (72% vs 11%) and guide to high fat foods (72% vs 0%) than controls. Furthermore, the intervention led to changes in the fire fighters' health habits that were reported by the views. No significant changes in the wives' health habits occurred as a result of the intervention, although the changes were in the predicted direction in every category; changes by the wives were, however, related to changes by fire fighters. Involvement of the fire fighters in the preparation of meals and sharing of information from the intervention program by the participant with the wife, were related to change in health habits of the wives. This study indicated that information from a worksite health program could be communicated to nonparticipating spouses, participants in the program could act as models for change in the spouces' behavior, and the participants' involvement in health-related activities with their wives could result in health habit change by the wives.