Dwayne Stamplecoskie never used to think twice before
reaching for a sugary, high-carbohydrate mid-day snack
despite his high blood sugar. It was as natural as pouring
his morning cup of coffee. But since participating in
a cardiometabolic
pilot program offered by his employer last
year, the 34-year-old police constable takes his health
more
seriously.
The program not only helped him decrease his blood
sugar by nearly 300%, it also helped him lose six pounds
over six months and gave him the momentum to lose
another 15 pounds in the months that followed. He says
he
now has at least 50% more energy.
“It raised my awareness of my own well-being,”
says
Stamplecoskie, who is with the 41 Division of the Toronto
Police Service, an
8,000-person organization that operates 24/7 and includes
everyone from
front-line uniformed officers to civilians working in
court and traffic services.
“Th is was a golden opportunity.”
Stamplecoskie is one of 510 employees who participated
in the cardiometabolic
program. Designed by Connex Health, a workplace health
consulting
fi rm in Burlington, Ont., and pharmaceutical company
Sanofi-Aventis,
the program assessed participants’ cardiometabolic
risk factors, a set of conditions—core obesity (being
apple-shaped), borderline hypertension
and insulin-resistance—that together increase a
person’s
risk of diabetes and heart disease. The program also measured
the
impact of nutrition and fitness counselling on participants’
cardiometabolic
health.
Workplace wellness has always been a part of Toronto Police
Service. Police work is a stressful and physically demanding
job.
The use of force is sometimes necessary when making arrests,
requiring police officers to be in top physical condition.
Policing is
also shift work, a well-documented source of stress, sleep
disorders
and ill health. So when Sanofi-Aventis approached Toronto
Police
Service with the idea for the pilot program, it took advantage
of the
opportunity. Connex Health, which had previously worked
with
the Service on other wellness initiatives, agreed to organize
and
run the program.
How it worked
During the initial hour-long clinics, employees filled
out a questionnaire
about family history of illness, tobacco use, physical
activity
and eating habits. They also gave a small blood sample,
which was
tested for glucose and cholesterol (triglycerides, LDL
and HDL), and
had their percentage of body fat, waist circumference,
blood pressure
and waist-to-hip ratio measured.
With participants spread out over 11 locations and several
shifts, scheduling the clinics was a challenge. One clinic
started at
4:30 a.m.
“Once it was determined we’d have to go through
some of
the divisions five times to capture all shifts, the greater
challenge
became allocation of resources,” says Connex’s
Leah VanOoyen,
manager of workplace health and wellness, who works with
companies
to implement, organize and manage wellness initiatives.
“We’d have to go out to a clinic five times
and maybe only capture
10 or 12 people each time, but we’d still have to
bring four bins of equipment. It took us an hour to set
up. It was definitely a budget
challenge trying to capture everyone across 11 locations.”
Once everyone’s health data was collected, a lifestyle
coach
reviewed the results and in one-on-one consultations provided
participants with resources and information on how to
improve
their lifestyle and eating habits. Over the next six to
eight months,
participants took part in nutrition and fitness counselling.
The
nutrition program involved maintaining a food diary, taking
vitamin and mineral supplements and eliminating consumption
of
processed foods.
The fitness program involved weightlifting, walking and
low-impact aerobics, which were all done on-site. While
most
participants exercised during lunch, they had the option
to work
out during business hours. (Allowing police officers to
exercise on
company time is up to their unit commanders, but Kim
McClelland, the Service’s wellness coordinator,
thinks it should be
a company-wide policy. “If you require police officers
to be fit [they
should be able to] work out as much as they want,”
she says.)
The results
Around six months later, participants returned to have
their measurements
taken again (of 510 participants, 171 returned—a
good
turnout for a police service, considering the unpredictable
nature
of police shift work, says McClelland). The results were
impressive:
• a 13.5% reduction in certain participants’
risk of developing coronary
heart disease
• a 23% increase in the number of participants with
one or no
cardiometabolic risk factors
• a 39% reduction in the number of participants
with four or more
cardiometabolic risk factors
• a 12% reduction in the number of people with an
unhealthy waist
circumference
• a 30% reduction in the number of people with a
low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol)
value of less than
3.0 mmol/L
• a 16.5% increase in the number of participants
with healthy
levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good”
cholesterol)
• twenty-six new diagnoses of high cholesterol,
high blood
pressure, diabetes and/or obesity, resulting in 17 new
prescriptions
for medications
• an increase in the number of participants who
regularly meet
the daily recommended servings of all food groups, except
meat and alternatives
McClelland says the biggest success of
the cardiometabolic program—aside from
the positive impact on employees’ health—
was the willingness of senior management
to allow the clinics and subsequent programming to be
held
during work hours. Doing so “gave a very clear message
to all
employees that the command was committed to wellness and
their well-being,” she says.
Toronto Police Service is working towards accreditation
as
a healthy workplace by the National Quality Institute
(NQI)
and has achieved level one of four so far. Next year,
the Service
plans to focus on fatigue management and sleep disorders.
Success stories
Diana Tuccillo knows all too
well about weight issues. A traffic court clerk
with
the Toronto Police Service for the past four years,
the 29-year-old noticed her weight creeping up.
Since participating in the nutrition counselling
portion of the cardiometabolic program (which
comprised a series of educational sessions taught
by a certified holistic nutritionist), she’s
lost 30
pounds and her percentage of body fat dropped
from 27% to 18%. Her good cholesterol went up,
while her blood sugar went down. She has more
energy and believes her productivity has increased.
“I’m extremely grateful [to my employer],”
she says.
“I would not have gone to a nutritionist by
myself.”
Cynthia Rennie is a senior
fingerprint technician with the Toronto Police
Service, who lost 80 pounds on her own in 1980.
With the help of Weight Watchers, she’s since
lost
another 20 pounds. While Weight Watchers was
not part of the cardiometabolic program, Rennie
credits the nutrition component of the program with
helping her stay on track and maintain her weight
loss. Although she considers herself knowledgeable
about nutrition thanks to her significant weight
loss,
she says it was good to get credible information
from another source. She no longer works through
her breaks, having realized the importance of
getting up and moving.
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Why do wellness?
Christine Bortkiewicz,
manager of occupational
health and safety, Toronto
Police Service, recalls how
employee health really
became a priority in the
late ’90s.
“At the time,
all of industry was
[experiencing] a huge rise
in drug costs,” she says.
“Everyone was looking for
strategies to mitigate those
costs. I wouldn’t say we
were any different—that
was probably one of the
drivers. At the same time,
we’ve always had a culture
where attendance was
important. When a police
officer goes down, we
can’t call a temp agency
to fill that position—the
other workers have to work
twice as hard to cover [the
officer].”
In 2002, Toronto
Police Service hired Kim
McClelland as its full-time
wellness coordinator.
The Service later used
pharmaceutical company
GlaxoSmithKline’s
Health Evidence model
to determine where it
was spending most of
its healthcare dollars. It
turned out the Service was
spending the most money
on cardiovascular disease,
hypertension, stress and
cardiometabolic disease.
Three years later, the
Service conducted a
health-risk assessment
(HRA) on its employee
population and identified
nutrition, sleep disorders,
stress and work-life
balance as areas of
concern.
“The real area
that convinced senior
command was the
health-risk assessment,”
says McClelland. “When
they were presented with
the results of the HRA
survey, that’s what really
kick-started the whole
[wellness] program.”
With an awareness
of workplace wellness
already in place,
convincing senior
command of the value of
a cardiometabolic pilot
program, introduced last
year, was not hard at all.
The program simply took
the Toronto Police Service’s
wellness strategy to the
next level.
“Each year we’ve done
different programs,” says
McClelland. “We’ve been
doing cardiometabolic
[programming] for
several years now, but the
Sanofi-Aventis program
was a much more
comprehensive, big-hit
kind of cardiometabolic
testing.”
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Andrea Davis is a freelance writer in Guelph, Ont.
For a PDF version of this article,
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