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Competition drives health department workers to reach exercise milestones
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
For Sandy Swann, Trumbull County Health Department director of nursing, all it took was a little competition to drive her to participate as much as possible in the county’s wellness program.
“We are very competitive. It was the idea of being the winner, kind of like in sports,” Swann said of her and several fellow health department employees who walked to Courthouse Square and back from their Chestnut Street offices at lunchtime.
The health department was one of 11 county departments that participated in a walking program created by the county’s wellness committee as a way to encourage exercise and good health among the county’s 1,552 full-time and 100 part-time employees.
The committee provided prizes to the 11 departments and allowed each department to decide how to run its program. At the health department, the top walkers each month received a prize.
And, the top two walkers during the 24 weeks of the health department’s participation from May to October also received a grand prize.
The 11 health department employees in the program walked a combined 2,558 miles during the program, which is an average of 233 miles per person. The average number of miles walked among the 193 employees who participated countywide was 175. Departments participated from between six and 24 weeks.
The rules were that employees could count the walking they did during their half-hour lunch and during 15-minute breaks, plus and any other walking they did during their normal workday.
For Swann, it meant using most of her lunch breaks for walking.
“I turned down a lot of lunches with co-workers to get my walks in,” Swann said.
Swann and public-health nurse Teresa Merrick were the first-place winners for their department. Swann said she was “still dragging people out” to walk even after the 24 weeks had ended.
“You get out of the building, the fresh air,” she said of the other benefits of walking, adding that about six of them were walking together during the summers even before the walking program.
“I enjoyed getting to know my co-workers, the companionship,” said Merrick, who added that she slept better after starting the walking routine, lost weight, and the results of her annual blood work were “perfect.”
Jenna Amerine, health educator for the department, said the program got people out of their chairs, and it “got everybody talking about it” because of the competition.
Amerine and Swann said exercise makes employees more productive and reduces stress, depression, injuries and sick time.
Zach Svette, chairman of the wellness committee, recently provided the county commissioners a report on the walking program and all of the wellness programs offered this year.
More than 400 employees participated in the walking, screenings for cholesterol and blood pressure or received a chair massage provided by a massage therapist who traveled to different departments one time per department.
United HealthCare, one of the county’s health-insurance companies, provided a $50,000 grant to create the wellness program. One goal is to improve the health of employees so that health care costs are reduced, Svette said.