Last year was all about expanding our Industry Partnerships, helping organizations grow, build or scale health coaching for their employees, patients and members.Through the course of those conversations across industries, we recognized a need to highlight the importance of health coaching, dispelling common misconceptions associated with this irreplaceable profession while spotlighting the latest data across a variety of focus areas.
Thus became our growing library of Deep Dives—now over 20 reports strong—in an effort to expand awareness of the benefits of REAL health coaching, rooted in the latest data. Each Deep Dive presents a multifaceted health concern, analyzes why the current approach to addressing this issue isn’t quite enough, and shares how health coaching has already demonstrated itself to be that missing piece of the puzzle. We took a closer look at the state of employee health in the U.S., plus that of caregivers; veterans and active military; those struggling with substance use disorders; we looked at women’s and men’s health issues; and cardiovascular health, just to name a few.
What is the latest “Deep Dive Insights Report?”
Today, we released the Deep Dive Insights Report, compiling some of the key trends and most pervasive data points we saw throughout our research. This is meant to be a jumping off point for anyone looking to learn more about health coaching and where health coaches can and do help, before double clicking on some of our more comprehensive reports across focus areas. Overall, we’re immensely proud of this body of work and know it will serve as a necessary tool to help others understand the difference between real health coaching and its impostures like nudging, and reinforce why health coaching needs to be provided to every employee; every patient; and every individual across the country.
What have we learned as we pulled together our Deep Dives?
When it comes to recognizing how effective health coaching can be at achieving real health outcomes, we certainly don’t need convincing! But compiling these Deep Dives reinforced some of the impressive hypotheses we’d compiled throughout our tenure as health coaching practitioners and experts. It’s becoming exceedingly difficult to deny the value health coaches bring to the table. Below are some of our favorite statistics and trends we unpacked through our Deep Dives (and you can check out more trends and insights in our Deep Dive Insights Report!).
- Health coaching reduces costs associated with health care and employee productivity. The CDC estimates that the total cost associated with productivity losses due to chronic diseases cost employers approximately $225.8 billion annually. Studies have shown health coaching interventions can catalyze an increase in productivity among employees by around 32%.
- Health coaches make it statistically more possible for individuals to achieve a variety of holistic health goals. According to the latest research, these include goals related to weight loss, nutrition, mental health, smoking cessation and so much more (check out more impressive callouts in our Deep Dive Insights Report!).
- Health coaches provide a deeply personalized, client-led approach to achieving better health outcomes—addressing a growing demand among employees for more individualized support from their employer-sponsored wellness programs. According to recent research, 75% of employees state that a “personal touch” is the most critical quality they look for in their corporate wellness program.
What’s next for our Deep Dive library and the industry as a whole?
Over 820 clinical trials evaluating health coaching interventions have been completed and published in the last 23 years in the U.S. alone, and the number of studies featuring health coaching has increased 5 times since 2012. One of our 2024 predictions is that more research institutions will initiate critical studies that continue to prove health coaching is necessary to achieving optimal health and wellbeing across a variety of parameters. All that said, we know we’ll need to continue updating our current library regularly to keep up with the latest data, potentially expanding into new areas of interest in 2024.
Concurrently, as we continue to pioneer impactful work with our Industry Partners, we’re considering opportunities to compile and share proprietary, anonymized data on the impact of health coaching. We’ve seen the positive effects our verified, validated health coaches have had on employees, patients and members firsthand (also evident in our satisfaction score of 98.4% across our book of business) and are hopeful we’ll be able to share data publicly in the near future to further advancements in the field.
If you have any suggestions for future Deep Dive focus areas, or are interested in understanding how we can partner with your organization to deliver real health coaching to your employees, clients or members, don’t hesitate to send us a note at team@yourcoach.health. We’re excited about the opportunities ahead in 2024 and are looking forward to furthering the Health Coaching Revolution through our partnerships and tools like our Deep Dives.