Promising Practice October 2024

About

Promising Practices for Total Worker Health® highlight real-world examples of organizations using comprehensive workplace policies, programs, and practices with positive results. This edition highlights the Business Collaborative for Brain Health, a new initiative to promote brain health and performance in the workplace.

Illustration of a human head in profile with an open segment displaying a puzzle piece, gears, and a tree

Background

The Business Collaborative for Brain Health is a collaborative of private sector partners developing innovative solutions to optimize cognitive health. Led by UsAgainstAlzheimer's, the Collaborative includes members representing large and small private sector organizations. This initiative brings together leaders from organizations around the world to create environments that promote brain health. The Collaborative aims to build brain health capital by advancing brain healthy workplaces, communities, and product and service innovations.

Brain health refers to the overall well-being and optimal functioning of the brain allowing a person to realize their full potential over the life course.1
-Business Collaborative for Brain Health

Challenge

Estimates show that impaired brain health may cost the global economy as much as $8.5 trillion a year in lost productivity.2 Promoting brain health is important for preventing cognitive impairment and fostering broader national interests, like economic growth and community development. Optimizing brain health can help organizations prepare for demographic aging, address mental health challenges, and prevent neurocognitive disorders.3

Intervention

The Collaborative worked with the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) and human resource consulting firm Mercer to launch a new resource. The Brain Health Best Practice Score is an educational resource developed in collaboration with public health and neuroscience experts. The score is designed to help organizations assess their health and well-being initiatives for promoting brain health. Companies of all sizes can use this new resource and its accompanying educational guide to develop a brain healthy workplace.

The score is a new feature of the HERO Health and Well-being Best Practices Scorecard in Collaboration with Mercer©. The scorecard provides information and tools to help organizations:

  • Make brain capital a critical component of their competitive strategy
  • Identify areas for improvement
  • Measure progress over time

Impact

In August, more than 420 companies received results of their brain health best practice self-assessment. This included more than 30 companies with over 20,000 employees. HERO and the Collaborative are using these data to identify trends. They will also use the information to further validate interventions that result in both health and business return on investment. In the future, the Collaborative plans to build evidence-backed resources that improve brain health and business outcomes for employers.

More stories

If your organization is targeting work conditions to improve workers' safety, health, and well-being, please email us at TWH@cdc.gov.

Gain deeper insights into worker well-being trends‎

HERO also launched an innovative data clearinghouse that aims to advance worker well-being globally. The clearinghouse is an open-source database that houses de-identified data from uses of the NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ).
  1. Business Collaborative for Brain Health [2023]. Defining brain health. Roundtable brief #3, September 14, https://businessforbrainhealth.org/resources/roundtable-brief-3-defining-brain-health.
  2. Eyre et al. [2020]. The brain economy. RSA J 2020(3):44–47, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348309746_The_Brain_Economy.
  3. O'Brien K [2024]. Unlocking workplace brain health to fuel prosperity and healthy longevity. Am J Health Promot 38(4):580–583, https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171241232042b.