ISSUE
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HEALTH & WELLNESS Magazine by
Expanding the definition of wellness by Srihari S
ekincare Insights - Health in numbers
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Magazine Name
Cancer Awareness - Risks and Prevention Expanding the definition of Wellness
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Eating right to beat cancer
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City Wise wellness scores ( Low to High) City Chennai
Scores 543
Hyderabad
566
Delhi
577
City
Smoking and effectiveness of CBT
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Scores
Mumbai
578
Bangalore
586
Pune
594
Ekincare data insights
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SPOTLIGHT
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Expanding the definition of Wellness Health & wellness is multidimensional in nature and people are moving beyond focusing solely on their health. They want to be at their best in all areas of life, which includes physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial aspects. Organizations today are interested in taking a more holistic and integrated approach to the health of their employees. This is primarily done by linking the preventive efforts with fitness and health-related absenteeism.
Srihari S
Director Human Resource at Indegene
At Indegene, employee experience is at the crux of all our People practices with a holistic view taken towards employee engagement.
86% of employees
77% of employees
86% of employees
89% of employees
say “Managing health is my top Priority in my life”.
say that their top priority is to indetify & effectively manage population health risks & chronic conditions across the workforce
say “Employers should actively encourage their employees to live healthy lifestyle”.
say that a top priority is to “identify and manage stress and behavioural health issuse across the workplace.”
Source - Willis Towers Watson India Health and Wellbeing Study 2018
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Today we have Mr. Srihari S, Director Human Resource at Indegene, sharing his valuable insights about the corporate wellness scenario for 2019.
Q1)
Where do you think corporate wellness programs are heading in India? Employees continue to be valued as the greatest asset regardless of innumerable technological advancements by corporates. The trend across the industry has been to focus on employee well-being, reduce their health risks and help them to adapt to healthier lifestyles. At Indegene, employee experience is at the crux of all our People practices with a holistic view taken towards employee engagement. Employee health and well-being is at the heart of our engagement activities. In fact, a major chunk of our HR budget goes into our flag-ship programme, My Health Matters which comprises of a gamut of activities organized throughout the year focusing on employee wellness. Corporates today care genuinely for employees and as such corporate wellness programmes is gaining much traction which are good trend to witness.
Q2)
Are wellness programs applicable only for large corporates? If not, what can small & medium scale companies do for employee wellness? Wellness programmes are of varied forms and intensity. Every organization big or small is keen to focus on employee well-being and has it written bold on its charter. Indegene today is recognized as Healthy Work Place in the Gold category but this sure is the fruits of the seeds sown long ago. Our investments have grown incrementally through the years but we have continued to invest creatively that has not only been cost effective but also impactful to our employees.
Q3)
What are some of the ‘Not-to-Miss’ factors of a successful employee wellness program? The primary factor to be assessed is the relevance of the wellness programme to the workforce demographics. While this seems quite intuitive, this is a potential pitfall to overcome while implementing any best practice. For instance, at Indegene our wellness programmes are meticulously tailored around employee needs. Owing to having a majority of millennials in our workforce our wellness activities are mostly designed around prevention rather than on cure.
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Our key focus is to minimize health-risks by promoting healthy life-style adaptations, than anything else. We do these through app-based challenges, yoga sessions, and annual health check-ups and so on.
Q4)
How are the changing dynamics of families impacting the workplace and employee wellness? Changing dynamics of families impact employee well-being positively and negatively. While we are thankful for the positive outcomes, we are well equipped to empower our employees to overcome challenges. We have made quite a few investments in this area which includes having professional counselling sessions for employees and online access to expert doctors for them and their families to consult 24/7. These experts smoothen the journey for our employees and we find this being highly valued by our employees.
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Magazine Name
Cancer Awareness
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Cancer Awareness Risks and Prevention
Today, if there is something that most people in the world fear, it is cancer. And rightfully so! For 17 million new cancer cases are registered in the world yearly and about 9.6 million people succumb to the disease each year according to studies by Cancer Research UK. Though there is more cancer awareness today than there ever was a few decades back, it still hasn’t reached a stage where everyone is cancer aware. Cancer is a disease where the body cells develop abnormally, multiply uncontrollably and destroy the other normal body tissues. While benign cancers are non-lethal and do not spread, the malignant cancers break-off from their source and spread in the entire body, often causing a fatality.
According to CancerIndia.org, about 11.57 lakh new cancer cases are registered each year in India with 7.84 lakh cancer-related deaths and an estimated 2.25 million people living with the disease.
These are no small numbers!
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Why Do You Need To Create Cancer Awareness In Your Organisation? Did you know that only 27% Indians have some form of insurance? Furthermore, most of them avail medical benefits & insurance from their organisation for themselves and their families. So, you, as the employer or HR, may be under the assumption that you are taking good care of your employee health, but most employees might not be fully aware about chronic diseases like cancer, its types, how to prevent it, risk factors, screening tests that need to be done and their frequency, preventive visits that need to made to the physician, etc. Does your employee health benefits scheme include cancer screening?
But why is that important, you might ask? By creating cancer awareness in your organisation, you are able to educate & motivate your employees to be more proactive about cancer prevention and offer them adequate support. Also, it has been seen time and again that employers often do not know how to deal with fighters or cancer survivors who return to their workplaces.
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So here's the big question:
Are you
CANCER AWARE?
What Are The Risk Factors That You Must Be Aware Of? No matter the advancement in technology, you can never predict with absolute certainty, whether or not you will develop cancer anytime during your lifetime. But, what you can do is avoid few important risk factors to try and steer clear of the big ‘C’.
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It’s in the Family!
Though you cannot inherit cancer from your parents, some genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2 run in families and these are known to genetically predispose one to cancer. Once you are aware of this fact, you will be more motivated to get a genetic test done to determine if you have this gene and understand what cancers you are at a risk of developing. Your physician will help you out with further preventive measures that you need to adopt. The More the ‘Not’ Better! Being overweight or obese has been linked with many chronic diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure, heart ailments and, believe it or not, is also a risk factor for cancer.
Obesity increases the risk of developing cancers such as pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, prostate and colorectal cancers. This problem is quite commonly seen among the working class who have a sedentary lifestyle and spend their entire work day perched upon their office chairs. But, how many of your employees know this fact? Keeping a tab on your BMI(body mass index) that measures the overall fat ratio in the body and staying within limits (25 is said to be healthy) will help in cancer prevention.
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Le t T h e r e B e N o S m o ke a n d N o F i r e ! Smoking is a habit that everyone knows is injurious to health but still continue to smoke. It leads to the release of many gases and particles which get inhaled into your body. These particles and gases are carcinogenic in nature and cause various types of cancers including lung, esophageal, oral, laryngeal, stomach, liver, pancreatic, prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. Along with smoking, the use of tobacco and its products often sees the same fate. According to the Lancet report, the products released from tobacco are also carcinogenic and hence, smoking and use of tobacco significantly increase your risk of developing cancer.
Infectious Ways Like any regular person, we are sure you visit a doctor’s clinic only when you fall ill, don't you? But, are you aware that some infections such as Hepatitis B and the Human Papilloma Virus(HPV) are known to increase your risk of developing cancer? Well, it’s true. By making people aware about these risk factors, you are in a way safe-guarding your employee health as they will now visit their physician in time for preventive methods such as vaccinations against such infections.
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So, How Do We Go About Its Prevention? In order to prevent cancer, one of the foremost things most physicians will tell you is to quit harmful habits such as smoking, tobacco and alcohol consumption. The next thing you must do is to increase your daily intake of vegetables and fruits. The reason for this is that fruits & vegetables have components such as antioxidants and similar chemical molecules that prevent oxidative stresses in your body cells that are commonly seen in cancer. So, in a way fruits and vegetables help in cancer prevention. Obesity causes many chronic conditions like diabetes in the body and has also been mentioned as one of the risk factors for cancer development. According to a study published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, it was found that approximately 6% new cancer cases in 2012 were caused by the combined effect of obesity and diabetes.
When you are aware about how some infections can predispose you to cancer, you will be more proactive to get vaccinated against them and protect your family and yourself before they affect you. Vaccinations against Hepatitis B and HPV are recommended for everyone to prevent cancer. Creating awareness about the different types of cancers also increases awareness about various screening tests one needs to get done based on your age. You can incorporate age appropriate screening tests in your yearly employee medical check-up packages to provide a wholesome diagnostic package that protect employee health.
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Is Your Organisation Cancer-AWARE?
After this informative bit, are you already mentally reviewing the type of employee cancer awareness schemes you have made available at your organisation? Well, don’t worry! The purpose of this article was to motivate you and your team to make your work place and your organisation more cancer aware in order to promote a healthy, cancer-free environment and happy & smiling faces who would be thankful to you for making them aware.
Docs Advice - Cancer Tips
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Eating right to beat Cancer The Cancer burden in India has more than doubled over the last 26 years, with breast cancer being the most common among Indian women. As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data, India had 14 lakh cancer patients and this number is expected to increase.
Dr. Lavanya
Chief Medical Officer, ekincare
The old adage goes “Prevention is better than cure�, it still holds good especially in the modern context where there is tremendous increase in the number of cancer cases in urban India. -
Correlation between our Diet and Risk of Cancer Epidemiological studies have shown that 70-90% of all the cancers are environmental. Lifestyle related factors are the most important and preventable among the environmental exposures. Risk of cancers is found to be lower among individuals who consume a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, starchy foods (wheat, jowar, carrots, etc) with only moderate amounts of red and processed meat. Risk is higher among those who consume excess amounts of red and processed meats, drink excess alcohol and are overweight/ obese.
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How can one reduce the risk of cancer by focusing on our Diet? Maintain weight close to ideal/ standard for height. It is best to remain consistent throughout adult life. Consume plenty of and variety of fruits and vegetables Increase intake of dietary fiber from different food sources Quit smoking. It is one of the major triggers for cancer. Avoid consuming alcohol. Fruits & Vegetables At least 5 portions a day are recommended. They can be consumed as fresh with minimal processing to retain maximum nutrients. All seasonal fruits and vegetables should be consumed to obtain overall benefits. Cereals, Bread & Potato They must constitute only 1/3rd of the plate including rice, wheat, oatmeal, noodles, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc Maximize on whole grain intake (e.g whole wheat bread, bajra, jowar,etc) from this food group to get more fiber. Meat, Fish and other alternatives Low fat products such as lean meat/chicken Steamed instead of fried fish Egg whites instead of whole eggs
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Case study: CBT in Cessation Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a tool used to help people with multiple different types of lifestyle problems. The therapy is based on changing thinking patterns and the negative behaviours associated with them. It’s a promising intervention for people who want to quit smoking because it changes and restructures thought processes and combines it with new learning behaviours. This process is essential for people who want to effectively quit smoking and maintain cessation.
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Our Approach We follow the CBT approach to tackle the problem of smoking at its root cause, which is the thought process. What a person thinks and feels about smoking has a large impact on their behaviour. The behaviour in this case is smoking and any action that encourages smoking. This is why CBT to quit smoking is focused on changing thinking patterns. Once they have changed the way they feel about smoking, a change in their behaviour should follow.
Our multipronged approach
Buddy nominated for each employee to ensure compliance
Routine consultations with life coaches and other experts
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (if required)
Personalized content on smoking cessation shared with employees on regular basis
24x7 Dedicated helpline
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Smoking in Numbers Of every $10 spent on healthcare in the U.S., almost 90 cents is due to smoking.
Researchers calculated that 8.7 percent of all healthcare spending, or $170 billion a year is spent on illness caused by tobacco smoke. The case is not very different in India. There are 12% of the total world smokers in India and the number is 120 Million. As per a study published by Times of India a regular smoker has a lifetime expenditure of 1 crore because of smoking.
ekincare conducted a study of over 42,000 participants spread across 80 Corporates in India. The data shows the grave danger the employees are in as well as the huge costs companies would incur because of the smokers.
Total People: 42,141 People Who Smoke: 8,206
People Under Stress: 8,873
People Who Drink Alcohol: 19,762
People Under Stress + Smoking: 1,977
People Who Drink Alcohol + Smoke: 7,313
It is observed from the data that 90% of people who smoke also drink alcohol!
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The Cost of Employee Smoking According to a 2013 Ohio State University study, employees who smoke each cost their employers an average of 4.2 Lakh Rupees( $5,800) a year, and can go up to 7.2 Lakh Rupees ($10,125) annually.
Here’s the full breakdown of costs: Smoke breaks
~2 Lakh Rupees ($3,077)
Extra health care costs for self-insured employers
~1.5Lakh Rupees ($2,056)
Excess absenteeism
~40,000 Rupees ($517)
Reduced productivity as a result of nicotine addiction
~30,000 Rupees ($462)
CBT for Smoking Cessation A study was conducted to test the effectiveness of a cognitive behaviour therapy for smoking cessation. A total of 122 smokers participated in the study. At 6 months follow-up, 21 (17.2%) of 122 participants receiving therapy were abstinent and 14 (11.5%) had reduced cigarette consumption by at least 25% of pre-treatment level.
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Approximately of CBT participants were abstinent or had a significantly reduced cigarette consumption 6 months after the intervention.
Conclusion Using CBT for smoking cessation has a very high efficiency among smokers. Almost 1 in 4 individuals quit smoking or reduce it considerably. Corporates can save a substantial amount by enabling their employees to reduce their smoking.
Ekincare Data Insights - Health in numbers
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Docspopulation Advice -analytics CancerforTips Ekincare platform provides organizations which are helpful to assess the employees health conditions and take preventive interventions. The data shown below is of consolidated wellness scores which is grouped city wise. ekincare‘s wellness score is defined based on an individual’s health data such as chronic conditions, fitness levels, stress levels and 20+ similar inputs. A high wellness score is an indication good physical health.
City Wise wellness scores ( Low to High) City
Scores
Chennai
543
Hyderabad
566
Delhi
577
City
Scores
Mumbai
578
Bangalore
586
Pune
594
CONTACT US
040 6817 4274 www.ekincare.com
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