Obesity affects individuals physically and emotionally, contributing to direct and indirect employer costs. Targeted obesity interventions through the Diabetes Prevention Program Lifestyle Core Curriculum offered at the worksite could promote healthy lifestyle decisions resulting in weight improvement among overweight and obese employees. A pretest-posttest cohort design was used to evaluate changes in weight and body mass index among 35 Diabetes Prevention Program participants; they achieved statistically significant changes in body weight (p < .001) and body mass index (p < .001). As a process measure, Diabetes Prevention Program session attendance moderately correlated with weight loss (r = .51; p = .002). Many health care professionals, including occupational health nurses, can implement evidence-based worksite obesity interventions to support employee weight loss.

Obesity affects individuals physically and emotionally, contributing to direct and indirect employer costs. Targeted obesity interventions through the Diabetes Prevention Program Lifestyle Core Curriculum offered at the worksite could promote healthy lifestyle decisions resulting in weight improvement among overweight and obese employees. A pretest-posttest cohort design was used to evaluate changes in weight and body mass index among 35 Diabetes Prevention Program participants; they achieved statistically significant changes in body weight (p < .001) and body mass index (p < .001). As a process measure, Diabetes Prevention Program session attendance moderately correlated with weight loss (r = .51; p = .002). Many health care professionals, including occupational health nurses, can implement evidence-based worksite obesity interventions to support employee weight loss.

Providing care by telehealth has been an aspiration for many health care practices. However, regulatory barriers often prevented its implementation. The emergence of the COVID-19 virus provided a window of opportunity for federal policy change in telehealth during a national state of emergency. Telehealth policy is examined using Kingdon’s multiple streams (policy) framework.

Occupational health clinicians often collect and/or interpret annual wellness biometrics for workers. It is now known that type 1 diabetes can present in stages including presymptomatic/normal glucose, presymptomatic/impaired glucose, and symptomatic/hyperglycemia. A workplace wellness screening case illustrates the concepts, along with background pathophysiology, recommendations for new staging and first degree relative screening, and implications for occupational health nurses.

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