Nicolaas P Pronk

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Verified

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• Ph.D.
• President at HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research

The purpose of this paper is to describe several important factors that are critical to include in the design of worksite health promotion programs in order to optimize best outcomes. These factors include the integration of safety and health, the consideration of the conditions of work, the incorporation of key principles of program design, and th...

Purpose The impact of gun violence on mental health is not limited to individuals who have experienced a shooting. This report enumerates, for the entire US population, the prevalence of anxiety and stress about gun violence. It also describes evidence-informed interventions that may improve these symptoms by reducing gun violence. Design Surveys...

Background Over the past several decades, the overweight and obesity epidemic in the USA has resulted in a significant health and economic burden. Understanding current trends and future trajectories at both national and state levels is crucial for assessing the success of existing interventions and informing future health policy changes. We esti...

Methods appendix to: GBD 2021 US Obesity Forecasting Collaborators. National-level and state-level prevalence of overweight and obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the USA, 1990–2021, and forecasts up to 2050. Lancet 2024; published online Nov 14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01548-4. This appendix formed part of the origin...

Supplementary appendix 2. Results appendix to: GBD 2021 US Obesity Forecasting Collaborators. National-level and state-level prevalence of overweight and obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the USA, 1990–2021, and forecasts up to 2050. Lancet 2024; published online Nov 14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01548-4 This appendix...

Background: Health systems support community health and well-being, and while many commit resources to convening in support of community-engaged communication interventions, they currently lack tools to evaluate this effort. This report describes one health system's mixed-methods stakeholder-engaged development of robust yet pragmatic convening as...

Introduction: Health indices vary widely within the United States (U.S.), with clear “belts and epicenters” where the prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, chronic disease, and disability are all high. Arthritis is a significant, well-established risk factor for developing chronic disease. In this paper, we hypothesize that the prevalence an...

Objectives There are numerous population health challenges confronting the United States (U.S.), including the unhealthy lifestyle – chronic disease pandemics. However, the impact of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and the increased prevalence of chronic diseases that result from them affect many facets of life outside of the health domain, and their...

Background Meaning in life is positively associated with health, well-being, and longevity, which may be partially explained by engagement in healthier behaviors, including physical activity (PA). However, promoting awareness of meaning is a behavior change strategy that has not been tested in previous PA interventions. Objective This study aims t...

Background Insufficient sleep can increase the risk of health problems and chronic conditions including cognitive problems, increased inflammation, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality. In this report, insufficient sleep, as a cultural experience, was tracked across the United States according to the American Nations model of...

BACKGROUND Meaning in life is positively associated with health, well-being, and longevity, which may be partially explained by engagement in healthier behaviors, including physical activity (PA). However, promoting awareness of meaning is a behavior change strategy that has not been tested in previous PA interventions. OBJECTIVE This study aims t...

The physical inactivity (PI) and obesity pandemics in the United States (U.S.) have undauntingly persisted in recent history. We have previously demonstrated differences in PI, obesity, socioeconomics, race, and regional culture according to county-level results for the 2020 presidential election. This commentary extends this analysis by considerin...

Efforts to reverse the physical inactivity (PI) and obesity pandemics in the United States (U.S.) have been unsuccessful. This commentary provides a view of PI and obesity in the U.S. from the intersection of politics, socioeconomics, race, and culture. On a national level, counties where the Democratic candidate received more votes compared to the...

This article underscores the critical role of the health sector in promoting inclusive democratic practices and outlines several action steps that are necessary to strengthen civic and voter participation to advance health equity and population health outcomes.

This article describes the interventions and the results of a 3-year program to improve health and well-being at the workplace using principles for program design.

To address organizational concerns related to the longer-term implications of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and generate priorities for organizational focus, we facilitated an in-depth dialogue and discussion among health system leaders who collectively represented medical, public health, and business expertise. Key insights and observations...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated the implementation and prioritizing of strict public health strategies to mitigate COVID-19 transmission and infection over all else. As we enter a 'recovery' phase in which the impact of the virus recedes (but does not relent), we ask, "How do we develop a game plan that considers preve...

Precision nutrition is an emerging concept that aims to develop nutrition recommendations tailored to different people's circumstances and biological characteristics. Responses to dietary change and the resulting health outcomes from consuming different diets may vary significantly between people based on interactions between their genetic backgrou...

Apply It! After reading this article, worksite health promotion and health and fitness professionals will: • Understand the purpose of conducting assessments and the health and safety implications when a worker is not able to perform his or her job optimally physically or mentally. • Appreciate how to recognize and manage the risks involved in cond...

Tragically, the Unites States (US) surpassed one million documented deaths due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A convincing association between unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and poorer outcomes associated with COVID-19 infection has already been demonstrated and communicated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in...

We have been amid unhealthy living and related chronic disease pandemics for several decades. These longstanding crises have troublingly synergized with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The need to establish research priorities in response to COVID-19 can be used to address broad health and wellbeing, social and economic impacts fo...

Patricia Mabry and coauthors discuss application of systems approaches in cancer research.

The sustained multi-decade increase in the prevalence of obesity calls for a new approach on addressing this public health concern. The Roundtable on Obesity Solutions (ROOS) (of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM]), a multisector group comprised of members from a variety of organizations and institutions, initiate...

This chapter describes the way the PRECEDE-PROCEED model has been applied to the workplace setting.

Background: Although racial and ethnic identities are associated with a multitude of disparate medical outcomes, surveillance of these subpopulations in the occupational clinic setting could benefit enormously from a more detailed and nuanced recognition of racial and ethnic identity. Methods: The research group designed a brief questionnaire to...

COVID-19 has severely impacted population health and well-being globally. Acknowledging that COVID-19 will not be the world’s last pandemic, improving healthy living factors (i.e., physical activity, healthful nutrition, healthy weight), which are important in mitigating negative outcomes of future infectious disease pandemics, should be prioritize...

Traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) have long been the focus of preventive strategies. The impact of family stress, depression, anxiety, hostility, pessimism, job strain, social isolation, lack of purpose in life and social support, are well recognized risks for CVD development, however they are under-appreciated in clinical p...

Context Released by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) every decade since 1980, Healthy People identifies science-based objectives with targets to monitor progress and motivate and focus action. Healthy People 2030 is the current iteration of the Healthy People initiative. Program Healthy People 2030 includes 3 sets of measures—H...

Heart disease and stroke are the first and fifth leading causes of death in the United States, respectively. Employers have a unique opportunity to promote cardiovascular health, because >60% of US adults are employed, and most spend half of their waking hours at work. Despite the scope of the opportunity, <1 in 5 businesses implement evidence‐base...

Objective: To summarize and describe the current US surveillance systems that assess physical activity (PA) for work and commuting. Methods: An expert group conducted an environmental scan, generating a list (n = 18) which was ultimately reduced to 12, based on inclusion of PA and/or SB data. Results: The 12 surveys or surveillance systems sum...

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the fidelity and estimate the effectiveness of a novel health system employee weight-management program. Methods: Employees participating in a weight loss program consisting of self-monitoring, health coaching and meal replacements optionally enrolled in the 12-month study. Longitudinal, single-arm analyses were cond...

Laws and policies are critical determinants of health and well-being. They can encourage positive behaviors and discourage harmful behaviors, and they can enhance or worsen health, health equity, health disparities, and health literacy. Recognizing their contribution to conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, pla...

The evolution of Healthy People reflects growing awareness of health inequities over the life course. Each decade, the initiative has gained understanding of how the nation can achieve health and well-being. To inform Healthy People 2030's visionary goal of achieving health equity in the coming decade, the Secretary's Advisory Committee on National...

Content: Healthy People 2030 (HP2030), the fifth iteration of the Healthy People initiative, provides science-based national health objectives with targets to improve the health and well-being of Americans. For the first time since its 1979 establishment, the Healthy People framework aims to attain health literacy as an Overarching Goal and Founda...

We continue to increase our cognizance and recognition of the importance of healthy living (HL) behaviors and HL medicine (HLM) to prevent and treat chronic disease. The continually unfolding events precipitated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have further highlighted the importance of HL behaviors, as indicated by the character...

Objectives: To describe the process used to build capacity for wider dissemination of a Total Worker Health® (TWH) model using the infrastructure of a health and well-being vendor organization. Methods: A multiple-case study mixed-methods design was used to learn from a year-long investigation of the experiences by participating organizations....

Research has shown that workplace health promotion (WHP) efforts can positively affect employees' health risk accumulation. However, earlier literature has provided insights of health risk changes in the short-term. This prospective longitudinal quasi-experimental study investigated trends in health risks of a comprehensive, eight-year WHP program...

Healthy People 2030 describes a vision and offers benchmarks that can be used to track progress toward the goal of all people in the United States achieving their full potential for health and well-being across the life span. This vision can be realized through evidence-based interventions and policies that address the economic, physical, and socia...

The purpose of this article is to highlight approaches to increase movement, physical activity (PA), and cardiorespiratory fitness, and reduce sedentary behavior (SB) in the context of the workplace. A deliberate strategy that will enable the successful promotion of movement at the workplace includes a business plan and rationale, an organizing fra...

Objective: To address which body composition (BC) measures best correlate with cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in firefighters and develop a model for accurate CRF estimation compared to traditional methods. Methods: Career firefighters had body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) measured in addition to body fat percentage (FM%) by du...

Objectives: To develop a strategy to promote life satisfaction with equity for a diverse insured population. Study design: Cross-sectional survey and claims analysis. Methods: We conduct an ongoing survey of a stratified random sample of adult plan members. Among other questions, the survey asks about adequacy of physical activity, healthy eat...

Background This prospective longitudinal quasi-experimental study investigated trends in health risks of a multiyear comprehensive workplace health promotion (WHP) program. Methods A comprehensive, eight-year WHP program was implemented emphasizing lifestyle behaviors as key targets in 2010-2013 and environmental supports focused on stress manageme...