Mental health interventions outperform others, but long-term gains uncertain

Workplace health promotion is a crucial aspect of ensuring the well-being of employees. Various interventions are implemented in workplaces to promote employee health, such as targeting dietary habits, physical activity, education, stress management, mindfulness, and environmental modifications to promote movement. A recent review published in The Lancet Public Health highlights the importance of mental health and stress management interventions in achieving consistent impacts in workplace health promotion. Group-based mindfulness training, in particular, has shown to be effective in this regard.

E-health interventions conducted via the internet or mobile phone have also been successful in reducing mental health symptoms and stress. Multicomponent interventions have yielded positive impacts in weight management, while movement-promoting modifications in the work environment have been somewhat effective in reducing sedentary behavior during the workday. However, the review notes that the effects of these interventions were generally minor, and there is limited information on their long-term sustainability in participants’ daily lives.

Professor Marianna Virtanen from the University of Eastern Finland emphasizes the need for longer follow-up times in intervention studies to assess the long-term effects of workplace health interventions. The review analyzed 88 meta-analyses from 2011 to 2024, evaluating a total of 339 interventions. The majority of interventions targeted mental health promotion and stress reduction, weight management, cardiovascular health, health-related behaviors, and musculoskeletal disorders.

Despite the importance of workplace health promotion, the review found that only 21% of intervention studies could be considered of moderate quality, highlighting the need for improved research designs and implementation processes. Extended follow-up periods are essential to gather more accurate and reliable information on the effectiveness and long-term impact of these interventions.

Workplaces play a significant role in health promotion, as they provide a platform to reach the working-age population. Intervention studies offer robust evidence for the effectiveness of workplace health interventions, with meta-analyses providing stronger and more reliable evidence by consolidating existing research. However, the lack of high-quality studies, long-term follow-up, and fragmented evidence currently hinder fully reliable conclusions on the overall effectiveness of workplace health interventions from a public health perspective.

For more information, the study titled “Effectiveness of workplace interventions for health promotion” by Marianna Virtanen et al. can be accessed in The Lancet Public Health (2025) with DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(25)00095-7. The research was conducted by the University of Eastern Finland.

Overall, workplace health promotion is essential for employee well-being, and continuous research and improvement are needed to enhance the effectiveness of interventions and ensure long-term health benefits for employees.