Allied health professionals and cardiometabolic disease risk screening in the workplace: a study of two companies in Darwin, Australia

Workplace health and wellness initiatives have been shown to improve productivity and reduce absenteeism. These programmes invariably aim to create awareness around heart health issues and the biokineticist or exercise physiologist is ideally positioned to perform this role. The primary aims of this study were to make use of existing tools to (a) describe the prevalence of selected cardiovascular disease risk factors, (b) to determine the participant’s 5-year risk of developing CVD and (c) describe the prevalence of metabolic syndrome. Participants (n=69) were recruited from two Darwin-based companies and voluntarily agreed to undergo a 10-15min workplace screening. Following overnight fast, traditional cardiometabolic risk factors (body mass index, circumferences, blood pressure, lipoproteins and blood glucose) were obtained from participants, as was information via a questionnaire on their health/physical activity history. Males exhibited significantly (p<0.05) higher levels in seven of the 11 selected modifiable risk factors and the prevalence of individuals above the threshold for increased chronic disease risk was as high as 50% for selected risk factors. The results of this pilot study confirm that workplace health screening is a practical, convenient method to identify individuals at risk for developing cardiometabolic disease and that biokineticists/exercise physiologists can play an important role in what is essentially a preventative medicine initiative.