Measuring the climate for health at organizations. Development of the worksite health climate scales.

Worksite health promotion research has overemphasized the impact of individual behaviors on employee well-being and neglected the important influence of the work environment. In the present research effort, measures of the health climate at the worksite were developed, administered to employees at a newspaper company, and then tested for their psychometric properties. After revising the original scales, several health outcome variables and an improved version of the measure were administered to employees at seven small worksites. The results indicated that 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.