Glossary

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Algorithms – Formulas of instructions and directions as to how the information gathered by the tool is to be used. (top)

 

Best practices – Those practices that have been evaluated under controlled conditions (with or without randomization) and found to be effective. In addition, the practices also meet the practicality criteria (such as cost effectiveness, availability and fit.) (top)

 

BETA testing – The process of testing and improving unfinished software. Beta testing is most useful when the testers aren't the original programmers and can provide specific, meaningful feedback. (top)

 

Comprehensive workplace health promotion – An approach to protecting and enhancing the health of employees that relies and builds upon the efforts of employers to create a supportive management under and upon the efforts of employees to care for their own well-being. (top)

 

Cost – The tool is available with a cost or fee. (top)

 

Cultural appropriateness – The delivery of programs and services so that they are consistent with the communication styles, meaning systems and social networks of clients, or program participants, and other stakeholders. (top)

 

Current practice survey – A type of situational assessment tool that collects individual responses from employees about their current behaviours (e.g., how much they eat/sleep, current levels of physical activity.) Employees self-report their behaviours. Current practice is often combined with other types of situational assessment tools. (top)

 

Determinants of health – Conditions in the psychosocial, socioeconomic, and physical environments which create conditions for ill health or wellness (i.e., housing, peace and security, belonging to a community, adequate income, food, clean air, water and soil, safe working conditions.) (top)

 

Effectiveness – This criterion refers to whether the intervention had a positive outcome or impact evaluation using a good quality research design. (top)

 

Electronic access – The tool is available in an electronic version from the contact. (top)

 

Employee completion – The tool is completed individually by the employee. (top)

 

Employer/committee completion – The tool is completed by the employer and/or a workplace committee. (top)

 

Employment equity – Equality in the workplace so that no person shall be denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability and, in the fulfillment of that goal, to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by women, aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities by giving effect to the principle that employment equity means more than treating persons in the same way but also requires special measures and the accommodation of differences. (top)

 

Epidemiology – The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems. (top)

 

Evaluation – The systematic collection, analysis, and reporting of information about a program in a way that enables practitioners and others to learn from their experience. Specifically, program evaluation generates the information needed to guide the development of more effective comprehensive workplace health promotion initiatives. (top)

 

External implementation – The tool is implemented by someone outside the workplace (e.g., consultant, company, etc.) The term “external” refers to accessing resources for the process from outside the workplace. For example, the analysis of a situational assessment tool is done externally. (top)

 

French – A French version of the tool is available. (top)

 

Health risk assessment – A type of situational assessment tool that collects clinical measures of health status (e.g., BMI, cholesterol, nutritional analysis, heart rate response to exercise.) The assessment of risk is based on clinical report/measures (i.e., it is not self-reported.) In most cases, a health risk assessment requires a professional to administer the assessment to all employees. The health risk assessment usually results in individualized results and an aggregate report for the workplace. (top)

 

Heart Health Resource Centre – The Heart Health Resource Centre (HHRC) provides support to the 37 community partnerships of the Ontario Heart Health Program – Taking Action for Healthy Living in Ontario, that plan, deliver and/or evaluate comprehensive community-based heart health strategies. The HHRC fosters networking and communication between peers through the Ontario Heart Health Network as well as its newsletter and e-mail discussion lists (For more information visit: www.hhrc.net) (top)

 

Implementation cycle – The process of preparing to distribute the tool to employees, distributing the tool for data collection, analyzing the results, and working with a wellness committee to make decisions about programming. (top)

 

Incentives – Benefits that motivate an individual or organizational decision maker in favour of a particular choice. (top)

 

Intellectual property – The group of legal rights to things people create or invent. Intellectual property rights typically include patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret rights. (top)

 

Interest survey – A type of situational assessment tool that collects the information from individual employees about the types of programs and services they are interested in. An interest survey usually results in an aggregate report for the workplace. (top)

 

Intermediary – Those who provide (or have the potential to provide) direction and support to people in workplaces about how to provide employee workplace health promotion. Intermediaries may include those in public health departments, municipal governments, unions, human resource associations, private sector organizations (for profit), employer organizations, organizations that provide health and/or safety services to workplaces, and non-governmental organizations such as community health centres. (top)

 

Internal implementation – The tool is implemented by the workplace. The term “internal” refers to resources or processes that are rallied from within the existing resource of the workplace. For example, the analysis of a situational assessment tool is done in-house by in-house staff. (top)

 

Knowledge transfer – Collaborative problem-solving between various groups (e.g., between researchers and decision makers, between intermediaries and decision makers, between intermediaries and practitioners.) Effective knowledge exchange involves interaction between the groups and results in mutual learning through the process of planning, disseminating, and applying existing or new research in decision-making. (top)

 

Language+ – The tool is available in languages other than English and French. (top)

 

Large workplaces – Workplaces with more than 200 employees. (top)

 

Lifestyle practices – One of three aspects of comprehensive workplace health promotion, which generally refers to efforts to change the employees’ behaviour. Examples of issues to encourage employees to act upon may include tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, nutrition, immunization and physical activity. (top)

 

Long completion time – Tools that take over 30 minutes to complete. (top)

 

Medium completion time – Tools that take between 10 to 30 minutes to complete. (top)

 

Medium sized workplaces – Workplaces with between 51 and 200 employees. (top)

 

Needs assessment – A type of situational assessment tool that collects the self-reported needs of individual employees. Individual employees fill out the needs assessment and assess areas they would like to focus on. A needs assessment asks for employee opinion and usually results in individualized results and an aggregate report for the workplace. (top)

 

No cost – The tool is available for use free of charge. (top)

 

Not recommended – A level assigned to tools that received low ratings on effectiveness, plausibility, and practicality. (top)

 

Occupational health and safety (OHS) – One of three aspects of comprehensive workplace health promotion, which generally refers to efforts to reduce the physical and chemical hazards in a work environment with the goal of reducing work-related injury, illness and disability. Many activities fall under the category of occupational health and safety, including ergonomics, injury prevention, hazard identification and control, emergency response problems, disability case management, and medical services. (top)

 

Occupational medicine stations – European organizations responsible for planning and delivering health services to workplaces. Many have worked extensively with their local workplaces to implement comprehensive workplace health promotion programs. The most successful ones formed regional coalitions with Labour and Safety Inspections, local authorities, media, employers and companies, and even with social insurance offices or private insurance companies. (top)

 

Online access – The tool is available online (on the Internet) from the web site provided in the contact information. (top)

 

Organizational culture (organizational change) – One of three aspects of comprehensive workplace health promotion, which generally refers to efforts to change or improve the organizational working environment. Elements of the organizational environment include leadership style, management practices, the way in which work is organized, employee autonomy and control, and social support. (top)

 

Organizational culture survey – A type of situational assessment that collects information from employees or employers about the organizational working environment. Elements of the organizational environment include leadership style, management practices, the way in which work is organized, employee autonomy and control, and social support. (top)

 

Packaged, ready-to-use – The tool is ready for you to use as it is. It does not require any adjustments or changes to the tool materials. (top)

 

Paper access – Paper copies of the tool are available from the contact. (top)

 

Plausibility – This criterion refers to the extent the intervention is likely to be effective based on formative/process evaluations and content and process attributes. (top)

 

Practicality – This criterion refers to the extent the intervention is likely to be effective in the context of the adopting community. Practicality addresses issues such as cost effectiveness, availability and fit. (top)

 

Program Training and Consultation Centre – The Program Training and Consultation Centre (PTCC) provides training, consultation, information, networking opportunities, and referral services related to tobacco control to Ontario health promoters. PTCC is a resource centre of the Ontario Tobacco Strategy (For more information visit: www.ptcc-cfc.on.ca.) (top)

 

Promising – A level assigned to tools that received a medium to high rating on plausibility and practicality. These tools may or may not have been evaluated (i.e., reliability and validity testing may or may not have taken place). (top)

 

Proprietary – The tool is owned by the developer and as such the developer has implemented restrictions on the tool. The tool cannot be implemented or reproduced without the consent of the tool developers. (top)

 

Psychographic – Information about target audiences such as:

Psychometric – Properties of the tool such as the distribution of item difficulty and discrimination indices. (top)

 

Public domain – The tool is not owned by any company or person. The tool can be used without the previous written consent from the developers and may be reproduced. (top)

 

Public health unit – An organization responsible for the delivery of public health information and programs in a defined geographic community. There are currently 36 public health units across Ontario (for more information visit www.opha.on.ca.) (top)

 

Quality of life – An evaluation of health status relative to the patient's age, expectations, and physical and mental capabilities. (top)

 

Randomized control trials (RCT) – An experiment in which investigators randomly assign eligible subjects (or other units of study, e.g., classrooms, clinics, playgrounds) into groups to receive or not receive one or more interventions that are being compared. The results are analysed by comparing outcomes in the groups. (top)

 

Recommended – A level assigned to tools that received high ratings on plausibility, and practicality. These tools may or may not have been evaluated (i.e., reliability and validity testing may or may not have taken place). (top)

 

Reliability – The extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study is referred to as reliability. In other words, if the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable. (top)

 

Short completion time – Tools that take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

 

Situational assessment – A situational assessment influences planning in significant ways by examining the legal and political environment, stakeholders, the health needs of the population, the literature and previous evaluations, as well as the overall vision for the project. The phrase "situational assessment" is now used rather than the previous term "needs assessment". This is intentional. The new terminology is used as a way to avoid the common pitfall of only looking at problems and difficulties. Instead it encourages considering the strengths of and opportunities for individuals and communities. In a health promotion context, this also means looking at socio-environmental conditions and broader determinants of health. (top)

 

Small workplaces – Workplaces with fewer than 50 employees. (top)

 

Socio-environmental – Factors such as housing, transport, safety and the work environment. It is argued that the contexts influence health more so than do the characteristics of the people in those communities. The context in which people live and work produces factors that interact in a range of different ways and these local differences should influence the selection of health promotion strategies. (top)

 

Validity – Validity determines whether the research truly measures that which it was intended to measure or how truthful the research results are. In other words, does the research instrument allow you to hit "the bull’s eye" of your research object? Researchers generally determine validity by asking a series of questions, and will often look for the answers in the research of others. (top)

 

Web application – A web application is software that runs on the Internet. There are several applications called web browsers that make it easy to access the Internet; two of the most popular being Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. (top)

 

Wellness committee – The formation of a workplace wellness committee is an important step in building a healthy work environment. This group should be responsible for planning and steering appropriate activities. All key decision makers, representatives of interests groups, and experts should belong to the group. (top)

 

Workplace audit – A type of situational assessment tool that provides a snapshot in time of what’s happening in the workplace. The workplace audit collects information about what the workplace offers employees (e.g., showers, flextime.) One person or a small group of individuals from the workplace provide the information for the workplace audit. The information collected could be specific to only one aspect of comprehensive workplace health promotion (i.e., organizational culture, occupational health and safety, lifestyle practices) or two or three of these categories. (top)