Need assessment as part of health promotion program for overweight male workers in two steel factories in Southern Taiwan

Introduction
Need Assessment (NA) is a key element for successful outcomes in Health Promotion (HP) program. Although there are increasing requirements for workplace HP programs by regulation of labor law in Taiwan, there is however lack of published data in utilizing on-site NA for workplace HP.

Methods
We developed a NA tool kit to conduct three 90-minute Focus Groups in each of two steel factories, and used the subsequent data to construct a 6-item questionnaire to be distributed to our target group, which were overweight (BMI>27kg/m2) male workers in the two factories. A total of 600 subjects completed questionnaire with informed consent, and the collected data were analyzed.

Results
When asked about how much they value their own health, 114 subjects (19%) rated “very important” while 203 (33.8%) rated “important.” The number one barrier to starting or maintaining a healthy lifestyle was “lack of physical exercise,” rated by 311 subjects (51.8%), followed by “irregular work-rest routine” by 224 subjects (37.3%). 23.5% expressed interest in participating in a workplace weight-control program, and 25.1% wished to discuss their Physical Fitness Profile with the on-site occupational physician. The three most-requested HP activities were nutrition classes, fitness walking, and hiking; the most preferred time for attending HP activities was 30 minutes before end of work on a Regular (8am-5pm) or Day (7am-3pm) shift.

Discussion
Recognizing the explicit needs of the target group is of paramount importance in designing and implementing an efficacious HP program, and an easy-to-use NA tool is indispensable. Our experience of designing a NA tool kit with Focus Group followed by questionnaire data analysis showed this process to be feasible and acceptable in workplace; we highly recommend such process to be utilized more widely among factories with on-site occupational health team in Taiwan.