MEASURING THE CLIMATE FOR HEALTH AT ORGANIZATIONS - DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORKSITE HEALTH CLIMATE SCALES

Worksite health promotion research has overemphasized the impact of in dividual behaviors on employee well-being and neglected the important influence of the work environment. In the present research effort, mea sures of the health climate at the worksite were developed, administer ed to employees at a newspaper company, and then tested for their psyc hometric properties. After revising the original scales, several healt h outcome variables and an improved version of the measure were admini stered to employees at seven small worksites. The results indicated th at the health climate differed significantly across worksites and that health climate perceptions were significantly related to measures of physical symptoms; exercise, nutrition, and smoking habits; job stress ; and job satisfaction.