Growth of older population in United States requires multi-generational evaluation to characterize health measures for sustaining workability. Investigation of measures that working population would need and use with their work-life in an attempt to stay healthy and fit, could potentially reveal significant association that could extend workability and enhance work productivity such as performance, presenteeism, job satisfaction. Evaluation with selective longitudinal health profiling; employment prerequisites; socio-economic and psychological scales could characterize health measures significantly associated with work sustainability. Such health measures could potentially be employed by US working population early in their life and occupation to sustain and improve workability in their later epoch.
Rising health concerns and financial deficits have been adversely influencing economies of many nations and population worldwide in the last decade. Globally, countries are trying extensively to intervene with their financial crisis and there by over-burdening citizens with various economic reforms and taxations [
The work-life expectancy at a certain age is the average number of years that a person in a given cohort will spend either working or actively looking for work during the remainder of one’s life [
Continuous population growth among the older group adults, apprehensions of financial planning and independence have become emerging gerontology issues. Increasing costs of healthcare services in United States have started to raise concerns in the working class to explore new approaches in an effort to sustain and meet the goals for prolonging workability, productivity ahead of time. Older Americans, the most rapidly growing age group, are the least physically active and generate the highest health care expenditures [
However all such programs and their applicability require reliability to ascertain the extent and involvement of various measures that could relate to the needs of the elderly for maintaining their healthy status as well as financial independence. Thus characterization of work sustainability indices in US context and evaluation of health promotion practices is needed. Applicable programs need to be developed for the working population to extend, improve their work-life. Such programs and approaches also in time-course could aid in furthering the understanding of variability in the level of severity of the problem and adequately generate implementation strategies.
Longitudinal investigations are needed in US to evaluate health promotion practices, which could extend, improve and sustain work-life with trans-generational appropriations and assist the working population to adhere to intelligent programs. Present health practices and planning with the anticipation of prolonging the work-life for working population with aging concerns in US is not much studied yet. Such studies could potentially provide information about the choices and availability of appropriate health promotion practices; and how various working class populations can utilize such information for sustaining workability while transitioning through the older age. Standard survey questionnaires (namely biographical, occupational health surveys; economic expectancy questionnaire) could incorporate mental and physical assessments; and financial expectancy and independence projections congruently. Such tools could be useful to identify significant correlates of health promotion practices with indices of work-life sustainability [16,17]; some of the significant ones could include Employee Biographical Questionnaire (EBQ) and Occupational Health Surveillance Questionnaire (OHRQ). Such assessments should be implemented on various age cohorts of working population to expand the evaluation with age-dependent perspective. Identifying and evaluating such age-cohorts, data collection strategies and accuracy of evaluations would play highly sensitive role in such large demographical-longitudinal studies. Research questions directed towards the assessment of performance of the health advancing techniques that adult and senior-adult populations have utilized or would use to achieve would be very important to provide essential frame work of individual health. Investigation of resources, which people use to stay healthy and fit, would be able to justify the expectancy of responsible behavior and work-life longevity. Such study paradigms could lay the necessary groundwork to entitle a set of markers for health promotion practices. Results from such investigations, health and fitness practices and programs used by working population can also be evaluated on the basis of outcome of work-life sustainability and not only on achieving general healthy status.
Targeting various age-groups with psychometric evaluation designed to explain health promotion factors for sustaining work-life expectancy in aging population could provide opportunities to evaluate multigenerational variability as well. These factors could be used as determinants for further consolidating recommendations for various growing age groups for selection of available options to sustain workability. Ultimately, health practices could be used by younger working class as a tool to enhance working abilities by improving and maintaining health condition for projected workability while transitioning through their age, securing their potential to continue with their employment by optimizing their health status. These study outcomes could help employers as well for improving responsible behavior development among employees. It could essentially serve the employees as health promotion measures tailored to their needs, structuring the health incentives and regulating the insurance and healthcare costs thereby maintaining health status of their employees targeted towards sustaining workability [
The authors acknowledge The International Institute for Health Promotion at American University, Washington DC for project sponsorship.