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About DHEW

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About Designing Healthy Environments at Work (DHEW)

Purpose of DHEW
DHEW Overview and Summary
Benefits of Completing DHEW
Eligibility
How to Complete DHEW
Acknowledgements
Questions

Purpose of DHEW

The Michigan Healthy Communities Collaborative has the goal of helping Michigan's workforce achieve better health through increased physical activity, healthier eating and adopting tobacco-free lifestyles. People cannot be active, eat well, and sustain a tobacco-free lifestyle unless their social and physical environment supports these behaviors. Businesses that support smoke-free environments at work, provide safe and convenient opportunities for physical activity, and offer reasonably priced, healthy food options in vending machines and cafeterias create healthy worksite environments for their employees.
The purpose of DHEW is to enable Michigan businesses to:

Assess themselves on how well they are doing at making it easy for employees to be healthy;
Increase their awareness of the types of steps they can take to promote better health among employees; and
Identify and further define actions they can take that will make a difference.

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DHEW Overview and Summary
Designing Healthy Environments at Work is an online questionnaire intended to provide an assessment of a worksite's health environment with regard to promoting and supporting:

Physical Activity
Healthy Eating & Healthy Weight
Smoke-Free Environments & Tobacco-Free Lifestyles
General Health Promotion and Education

The online assessment is available on this website. Michigan worksites that wish to complete DHEW must register to personalize the assessment for their location.
DHEW takes 30 - 60 minutes to complete online after conducting the research and collecting the data necessary to answer the questions. It is estimated that it will take 2 to 4 hours for research and data collection. To assist worksites in completing the assessment, it is recommended that you print a preview copy of the Designing Healthy Environments at Work before you complete the online assessment. The copy is available in the Preview the DHEW section of this website.
DHEW addresses four categories:

Section 1 - Worksite Health Promotion
Section 2 - Tobacco
Section 3 - Physical Activity
Section 4 - Nutrition

The last section, Section 5 - Additional Information and Next Steps, is a summary and planning section to allow worksites to reflect on what they learned in completing the assessment. Section 5 also helps worksites identify possible next steps they can take based on the assessment results combined with their own ideas about what would best serve the employees. Designing Healthy Environments at Work assessment tool also includes a scorecard. Scores are calculated each time you save when completing the online assessment, thereby giving each worksite feedback each time they enter and save their data.
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Benefits of Completing DHEW

Michigan's current health statistics and their associated economic burden provide a compelling benefit for taking steps to improve the health Michigan workers.

Cigarette smokers are absent from work on average 6.5 days per year more than nonsmokers [Source: American Cancer Society website. The cost of smoking to business. Click here to access the article.]

Physical inactivity results in the loss of approximately 20 days per worker [Source: Michigan Fitness Foundation website. The economic cost of physical inactivity in Michigan. Click here to access the article.]

62% of Michigan adults are either overweight or obese [Source: Michigan Department of Community Health. Healthy Michigan 2010. Click here to access the article.]

Healthcare costs related to inactivity and unhealthy eating continue to rise
Additionally, tobacco-free worksite campuses; opportunities for physical activity throughout the day, and delicious healthful foods at reasonable prices rank high on most peoples' list of desirable characteristics for a worksite.
Completing the assessment is an important initial step in improving a worksite's health as it helps to identify strengths to build on as well as targeting areas and possible actions for positive change. Your worksite will receive a formatted feedback report issued after completion of the assessment that can be used to assist in planning for changes.
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Eligibility
Any worksite in the State of Michigan is eligible to complete Designing Healthy Environments at Work.
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How to Complete DHEW
Michigan worksites that wish to complete the Designing Healthy Environments at Work (DHEW) begin by registering on this website. Registration takes less than 10 minutes. Immediately after registration, the worksite has access to their assessment along with instructions for completion. After registration, worksites can log in anytime they wish to enter data in their assessment. (The log in box is located on the home page of this website.)
Data entry can be done in as many data entry sessions as the worksite wishes. The data entry for the online DHEW assessment simply involves clicking on the appropriate response for each question. Complete instructions for completing DHEW are provided immediately after registration. The instructions are also available to registered worksites each time they log in.
For a preview of DHEW (including a printable version), please see the Preview the DHEW section of this website.
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Acknowledgements
Although DHEW was created especially for Michigan worksites and is presented by the Michigan Healthy Communities Collaborative, its creation would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous organizations and individuals. We gratefully acknowledge the following organizations and individuals for their contributions and expertise:

Check for Health Workplace Environmental Assessment, California 5 a Day Worksite Program, CA;
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA;
Georgia Worksite Wellness Assessment Tool Version 1.8, Georgia Department of Human Resources, Chronic Disease Prevention Initiative, Atlanta, GA;
The Michigan Fitness Foundation, Lansing, MI;
Worksite Health Promotion Audit, Greater Kalamazoo Community Wellness Coalition, Kalamazoo, MI;
Worksite Wellness a Policy and Environmental Approach, Missouri Department of Health, Bureau of Chronic Disease Control, Jefferson City, MO;
Heart Check Assessing Worksite Support for a Heart Healthy Lifestyle Version 4.1, New York State Department of Health, Healthy Heart Program, NY;
Questions for Worksite Representative, University of California, Center for Advanced Studies in Nutrition and Social Marketing, Davis, CA.

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Questions
Read the Frequently Asked Questions to get answers to most of your questions. If you do not find the answers to your questions, please contact us.
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Presented by the Michigan Healthy Communities Collaborative