Wellness Programs: do they work?

Wellness programs sometimes claim to save money by reducing health care spending, and the observational analysis usually supports this belief. This report tells us about a unique study published earlier this year looking into the effectiveness of the wellness program at the University of Illinois.
It evaluated the program (iThrive) implemented at a large employer with 12,000 staff in the US, using both an observational AND a randomized controlled study approach.
They took the 3,300 staff who accepted the wellness program, then analyzed them the way a typical observational trial would, comparing those who participated with those who didn’t. After one year there were no significant effects of the wellness program on the many outcomes examined, with two exceptions: employees are more likely to have received a health screening and to believe that the employer places a priority on worker health and safety.

Jones, D., Molitor, D., & Reif, J. (2018). What Do Workplace Wellness Programs Do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study (No. w24229). National Bureau of Economic Research.