Effects of a corporate sponsored fitness program on health care costs : a comparison of users and nonusers

Abstract

The sample of 3,974 employees of Apple Computer were divided into male (n = 2,088) and female (n = 1,886) groups and then further categorized according to age and the degree of participation in the Apple Health and Fitness Program. Mean age for males was 34.5 years +/- 7.55, while the mean age for females was 34.7 years +/- 7.58. The mean health care cost was $1,053.8 +/- 3,705 for males and $1,420.0 +/- 4,168.1 for females. Participation was measured over an 11 month testing period and divided into 4 subgroup headings: no use, low use, moderate use, and high use. Rather than use overall health care means, independent age group means were used to assign cost status. After skewness and kurtosis measurements determined that the sample was not normally distributed, chi-square tests were applied to locate statistical significance, In both males and females, chi-square tests examined differences in high and low cost status for the subjects within a particular age group. For both male and female subjects no significant differences were found within the age and participation subgroups (p > .05). The same subjects and age groups were then categorized into just 2 usage groups: user and nonuser. No significant difference was found among male users and the nonusers within the three age groups (p > .05). Meanwhile, a significant difference was found in females 31 to 40 years old and females 41 and older (p < .05). In females 31 to 40 the nonusers were found to have significantly lower medical costs while the opposite was true for females over 41 years of age.