WORK
North Dakota is home to a highly trained and productive workforce; North Dakotans are known across the United States for our strong work ethic. Because the workplace is where many of us spend a majority of our day, it’s where Healthy North Dakota is working to help make worksites places where North Dakotans can make healthy choices.
As a national average, people are spending 50 hours per week at work (Harris Interactive Poll, 2004). In North Dakota:
- More than 316,000 (63%) of residents over 16 years old are in the workforce
- There are nearly 24,000 businesses
- 76% of North Dakota adults under 65 years have employer-based group health insurance.
- If working people don’t have access to fruits and vegetables on the job, you’ll need to eat 1-2 servings every waking hour after work to get 5-9 servings a day!!
- If working people don’t have a way to be active during work hours, you’ll need to be active before or after work to get the recommended minimum 30 minutes daily.
Healthy North Dakota’s Worksite Wellness Initiative Receives Award
The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials recently awarded the 2009 second-place Vision Award to Healthy North Dakota, recognizing creative and innovative approaches to addressing public health challenges. Healthy North Dakota’s Worksite Wellness Initiative works to increase the number of North Dakota worksites that offer comprehensive worksite wellness programs, to increase the number of employees who participate in worksite wellness, and to demonstrate the impact of worksite wellness programs on the health of employees and employers. Healthy North Dakota’s Worksite Wellness Initiative uses trained consultants to assist worksites with facilitating the development of worksite wellness plans specific to each worksite. In addition, Healthy North Dakota developed a worksite wellness training curriculum.
