Researchers at Columbia University suggested that if additional study confirms their findings that frequent business travel is unhealthy, corporations and other organizations may want to reemphasize health-related elements of their programs. Options could include reimbursement incentives for healthy eating, property selection based on fitness facilities, employee stress management programs and education.
Public health experts Catherine Richards and Andrew Rundle of Columbia's Department of Epidemiology last month in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicinepublished a summary of their study of 13,000 medical records from preventative health company EHE International's corporate wellness plan. They found the greatest health concerns among travelers who were on the road more than 14 nights a month.
"Health outcomes were consistently worse for those not traveling and those traveling the most," according to the researchers. "Specifically, self-rated health, prevalence of obesity, body mass index and diastolic blood pressure displayed a U-shaped pattern of associations with the extent of business travel." Assessing why non-travelers also demonstrated unhealthy traits, the researchers wrote, "Our data suggest that the non-traveling group includes a subpopulation with ongoing health conditions who self-select not to, or are not chosen to, travel for business. As a consequence, the non-traveling group displays poor outcomes in our study."
Among those who do travel for business, the study found "extensive travel to be associated with poorer self-rated health, higher body mass index and worse clinical examination results." Although the report's authors claimed no knowledge of past research linking business travel and "self-rated health and clinical indicators of chronic disease outcomes," they noted that other research has found travel to be "associated with several negative health behaviors," including alcohol and higher-calorie meal consumption, more sedentary behaviors and increased job strain with associated cardiovascular disease risk factors.
"Should further research substantiate a link between business travel and obesity and other chronic disease health outcomes, there are several possibilities for workplace interventions," the report concludes. "Employee education programs on the association between business travel and health and on strategies to improve diet and activity while traveling are a simple start. If the company reimburses employees for meals while traveling, reimbursement rates could be tied to dietary quality. A 'stick' approach might be to reimburse high-energy density food meals at a below cost rate, while a 'carrot' approach might be to reimburse healthy meals at an above cost rate. Companies that have arrangements with particular hotel chains for volume or business discounts could make having an available gymnasium part of the criteria for selecting hotel chains. In addition to steering employees to hotels with gymnasiums, companies could also provide financial incentives to employees to exercise while traveling. Lastly, given the link between business travel and work stress and between stress and diet and obesity, stress management classes and workshops may have utility in reducing the impact of business travel on health."
The article originally was published in Business Travel News.