June 25, 2025 12:00 pm Central
Register 1 CHES/MCHES Credit Available
Guest Panelists:
Laurie Whitsel, PhD, FAHA
Nico Pronk, PhD, MA
Mary T. Imboden
US adults spend the majority of their waking hours working. This makes the workplace, whether a hybrid, remote, or home-based setting, a key place to support employee health and well-being. Every company has a culture that is influenced by leaders, which can affect the health of the workforce in either positive or detrimental ways. Employers can intentionally create a culture of healthy living at their workplaces through establishing organizational policies, systems, work processes, architectural design practices, and employment benefits designs to support healthy behaviors for all employees. Organizational leaders also play a critical role in modeling these healthy behaviors and in ensuring resources are available and accessible to do so. In this webinar we will discuss various perspectives and definitions of a culture of health and healthy living at the workplace, posit that a healthy workplace culture represents a cumulative set of factors acting together to shape a positive work environment, discuss how healthy workplace cultures may be created, and provide support for the notion that a healthy workplace culture is good for the company’s bottom line.
SPEAKERS
Mary T. Imboden is a Principal Research Scientist in Providence Heart Institute’s Center for Cardiovascular Analytics, Research and Data Science where she oversees system-wide cardiovascular prevention and health equity research. Mary also serves as a research fellow at the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), where she manages the HERO Worker Well-Being Clearinghouse, Powered by the NIOSH WellBQ and HERO Health and Well-being Best Practices Scorecard in Collaboration with Mercer. She also serves as a co-editor of the Knowing Well, Being Well section of the American Journal of Health Promotion. Mary has served as an advisory member on several local and national committees, including the Physical Activity Policy Research and Evaluation Network and the Wellbeing Think Tank. She has published more than 50 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and in 2024 received the American Journal of Health Promotion’s recognition of “Twenty under Forty” for excellence in health promotion. Mary obtained her doctorate in Human Bioenergetics with an emphasis in Clinical Exercise Physiology from Ball State University’s Human Performance Laboratory and her Master’s degree in Health and Exercise Science from Wake Forest University.
Dr. Laurie Whitsel is a recognized leader in translating science and evidence into impactful public health policy. Currently the national vice president of policy research for the American Heart Association (AHA), she helps to translate science into impactful public policy at a national level in the areas of cardiovascular disease and stroke prevention and health promotion. As the senior advisor to the Physical Activity Alliance, the nation’s broadest coalition dedicated to promoting physical activity for health, Dr. Whitsel helps to lead national policy and systems change to integrate physical activity assessment, prescription and referral into health care delivery and improve population health. She has served on the boards of several organizations, on expert advisory groups with think tanks, funders and government agencies. She is an influential researcher, publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She presents at national conferences on prevention issues and evidence-based policy making. She serves as an expert peer reviewer for several scientific journals and is a consultant on research grant teams. She is a regular lecturer at Columbia University. In 2023, Dr. Whitsel was recognized as one of “The Most Influential Women Leaders in Health Promotion” and was also honored with the Mark Dundon Research Award by the Health Enhancement Research Organization. In 2024, she received the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise is Medicine Global Leadership Award.
I can contribute the work we are doing to integrate physical activity into benefit design and larger policy and systems change. Also the relationship between the transformations happening in health care, affordability, and benefit design and the role of employers and leadership role modeling.
Dr. Nico Pronk serves as president of the HealthPartners Institute and chief science officer at HealthPartners, Inc., where his work is focused on connecting scientific evidence of effectiveness with practical applications of programs and practices, policies and systems that measurably improve
population health and well-being. Dr. Pronk is a recognized global scholar in health education, health promotion, and population health and well-being. Among a wide variety of appointments, his leadership has included co-chairing the scientific advisory committee for Healthy People 2030 to set the health goals for the nation, a 14-year membership on the Community Preventive Services Task Force at the CDC,
membership on the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, and board member for the health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO). Additionally, he served for two consecutive terms as the chair for the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions, as a member of the Food and Nutrition Board, and coordinated many public workshops at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Dr. Pronk is an active researcher and educator, publishing over 450 articles, book chapters, and 2 books while teaching and conducting research with colleagues in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts and the department of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dr. Pronk has been recognized with the 2012 NIH Merit Award, the 2013 HERO Mark Dundon Research Award, the 2016 Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award, and is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the Association for Worksite Health Promotion.
HOST
Paul Terry, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at HERO where he leads our learning agenda. Paul is also Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Promotion. His prior positions were president and CEO at HERO, president and CEO at StayWell Health Management, and president and CEO at The Park Nicollet Institute. Paul is the author of four books and over 200 research and professional papers. A study he led won the C. Everett Koop National Health Award. He was awarded two Fulbright Senior Scholarships and served on advisory councils for The National Academy of Sciences, the American Heart Association, the CDC, the University of North Carolina, Gillings School of Global Public Health, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Sponsored by Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), a designated provider of continuing education contact hours (CECH) in health education by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. This program is designated for Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES) and/or Master Certified Health Education Specialists (MCHES) to receive 1 total Category I continuing education contact hours. Provider ID#101039