Tu Du Hospital Midwife Training
Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam
 
Tu Du Hospital offers midwife training to help reduce high neonatal death rates in Vietnam. Johnson & Johnson supports a training program for midwives in 32 cities in rural areas. The program also includes a train-the-trainer component that significantly increases the number of midwives reached.
 
Here, the photographer shows a young midwife holding a newborn infant close to her body, a midwifery practice that helps prevent heat loss in the newborn.

(Photographer: Janea Wiedmann, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

I wanted to share an interesting idea we’ve initiated on the Johnson & Johnson health channel. It’s a series we call “Real Moms.”

I’ve invited Mommy Vlogers to submit videos on topics relevant to them, and which might be helpful to a larger audience.

So far, I’ve received videos on safety tips for toddlers, how to make homemade baby food, and teaching your kids to be ecologically friendly. They don’t have to be perfect — most have been made on a flip cam — and I do post most of the videos sent to me, as long as they don’t reference specific products. To compensate the vlogers I pay $100 for each video used.

One of my favorites was done by Colleen Padilla (Classy Mommy) on tips about how to keep from going stir crazy with your kids when stuck inside during bad weather.

I’m always looking for more content, so if you are interested, just let me know by clicking “send message” on the Johnson & Johnson health channel.

Theotokos Foundation School for Children with Special Needs
Ilion, Greece

The Theotokos Foundation helps children and adults with developmental disabilities reach their full potential as they enter school and the workforce. Johnson & Johnson has supported the foundation’s Inclusion and Supported Employment programs.
 
The photographer portrays the way that teacher and student interact, celebrating little successes in the child’s education. Close, personal interaction is key to Theotokos programs.

(Photographer: Charlotte Oestervang, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

By Annette Russo, Manager, Communications and Training, Worldwide Environment, Health and Safety

If you read a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch television, you’ve heard the word “sustainability”. It’s a business buzzword now, on the order of “total quality,” “just in time,” “six sigma” and “ISO.”

Yet while companies are starting to talk more about what they are doing to reduce their impact on the environment and be more active in their communities, you may be asking yourself – “what does this all mean for me?”

Well, many companies (Johnson & Johnson included) are starting to come up with an answer to this question. At my company, we’ve put together something called a “personal sustainability program,” or PSP to help employees understand what sustainability means – and how they can apply it to their lives. The concept was pioneered by Wal-Mart in partnership with Act Now .

Wal-Mart’s program, focused on environmental and health issues, involved training PSP leaders, who returned to their stores, trained other interested employees, and then lead PSP efforts at their stores. Each PSP participant pledged to change an environmental or health aspect of their personal life, and when that change was made, they were recognized.

Wal-Mart believes that this program has had many benefits – and they cite carbon dioxide reductions and improved health for their employees. One dividend, however, that is rather difficult to measure is that through this program they have unlocked employee creativity – to develop solutions that were then applied to the business. In a famous example, a PSP participant turned off lighting in soft drink machines in the employee lounge, saving over a million dollars in electricity use each year.

At Johnson & Johnson, I’m responsible for a PSP program that we call “Cause an Effect” – which includes tools that educate employees on four component parts of personal sustainability (environment, community, well-being and economy) and on ways in which they can improve their own environmental impact , health and connection to their communities– for instance, by doing eating locally grown food you are supporting your local farmer, reducing your environmental footprint and improving your health. The program is entirely voluntary, but those who decide to participate can make pledges to make changes and be recognized for their efforts.

So, you might be asking, what is my PSP? Like many of you, I’m struggling with my fitness, so I’m pledging to do Pilates three times each week for at least three months. I think it will help with weight loss, physical health and mental health, and I’m hoping it will help me to be a bit more graceful.

Earlier today, President Barack Obama invited several employers, including Johnson & Johnson, to the White House to discuss their employee health and wellness programs and the impact they’ve had on the overall health of employees and healthcare costs — and so Chairman and CEO, William Weldon went to Washington to share some of the steps that have been taken at Johnson & Johnson. Now I wasn’t at the event and though I use our onsite gyms and health clinics, I’m no expert on our health and wellness programs — BUT I know someone who is. So I invited our resident expert, Fikry W. Isaac, MD, MPH, executive director of Johnson & Johnson Global Health Services, to share some of his thoughts on these programs.

From Dr. Isaac:

Like most full time employees, I spend more than a third of my waking day at work. When you consider that, it’s easy to see the importance of workplace wellness and the responsibility employers have to help employees lead healthier and more productive lives. This is something Johnson & Johnson has worked to achieve over the last 30 years by fostering what we call “a culture of health” for employees. As a physician and as public health officer, I can’t tell you how rewarding a journey this has been for me.

Now there are different thoughts on how best to do this, but we believe the most effective way to do this is to deliver a comprehensive and integrated package of health and wellness solutions addressing the “whole person” and what I mean by this, is to ensure that our programs cover our people’s needs from mental wellbeing, to health and safety in the workplace, to preventive health screening, health education & awareness and most importantly helping our people to know their health status, offer them programs to improve, and provide avenues for them to be active at work, home and at play. Given the role that robust employee health and wellness programs can have in lowering overall healthcare costs, I thought I would share a quick overview of what’s done at Johnson & Johnson:

Our program includes an online health risk assessment, lifestyle and disease management counseling, services to promote mental well-being, health risk intervention programs to reduce the likelihood of disease; environmental changes in the workplace (well lit hallways, safe stairwells that are inviting for those who want to take the stairs instead of the elevator, healthy food options in the cafeteria); and financial incentives for participation. Employees also have access to onsite fitness centers (which provide a great way to recharge in the middle of the work day) or they can receive discounts to attend local facilities.

What do you get from doing all of this? The results, based on health profile responses, are encouraging. I’ll give you a couple examples (Keep in mind that these figures compare our 2007 results with the national goal for 2010.):

•Our rate of smoking was reduced to 4 percent of our employee population, against a national goal of 12 percent.
•Our rate of high blood pressure was reduced to 6 percent of our employee population, versus a national target of 16 percent.
•Our rate of high cholesterol was reduced to 7 percent of our employee population, against a national goal of 17 percent.

Our biggest challenge is in the area of physical activity. Just over 36 percent of employees report they are not sufficiently active, compared to the national target of 20 percent. This is an area that we continue to work on – if you walk through any Johnson & Johnson facility, you’ll see many employees wearing pedometers, and we organize many team competitions to encourage more physical activity. There is also an online program that employees can sign up for called “Move.” It’s a personalized program by HealthMedia, a recently acquired Johnson & Johnson company that delivers customized, web-based programs focused on wellness & prevention, disease management, behavioral health, and medication adherence. You can read about one of our employee success stories on our corporate website.

Behavioral health is also important to support and efforts in this area have had a measurable impact on absenteeism and mental health. Today, our Employee Assistance program, which we launched in 1978, serves the needs of 90,000 Johnson & Johnson employees and family members in 34 countries.

I’ve been involved with these programs for almost 20 years, and I can tell you that it has most rewarding for me personally to see the significant positive health impact for our employees as well as the value to the business. In fact, our programs resulted in time-adjusted savings of $400 per employee per year, and improved health status was achieved in eight high risk areas, including cholesterol, blood pressure, and tobacco use.

The bottom line is that our health and wellness programs are considered an investment in the health of both employees AND the corporation. To truly create a culture of health that will drive long-term sustainable results, employers must deliver a comprehensive set of programs that focus on both the individual and organization.

By Mark Krajnak, Manager, Johnson & Johnson Corporate Communications

Recently, on a warm, sunny, Sunday, I spent a fun time in a tunnel.

Not to mention I was under the Hudson River.

To explain: On April 26, the 23rd Annual Lincoln Tunnel Challenge took place. This is a very unique 3.1-mile charity run/walk through the Lincoln Tunnel, from the Jersey side, to the New York side and back. What makes it really unique is that this is the only time pedestrians can run (or walk) through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Presented by AmeriHealth of New Jersey, The Port Authority of NY & NJ, the Lincoln Tunnel Administration, and Coach USA, this annual event benefits Special Olympics New Jersey (SONJ). I was there doing some volunteer work for the SONJ. However, I was also happy to find out that a contingent of Johnson & Johnson employees also was there to do the charity run.

This part was all the doing of Michael Rosenmertz, who works in Information Technology for Ethicon, one of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Michael has been organizing participation in this event for about three years now and his team, Team Papa, had 81 participants, young and old alike, and the second-largest team in the field. Of that squad, 12 work for Ethicon and one works for Johnson & Johnson in its corporate offices.

Rosenmertz told me that Team Papa started after he and his ten year-old nephew ran in the event for the first time three years ago as the only members of Team Papa. Apparently, his father was a long-time volunteer for SONJ and since he was battling cancer at the time, he couldn’t volunteer as he normally would. They decided to run the event in his honor and called the team ‘Team Papa’ because his grandkids called him Papa.

In addition to the Lincoln Tunnel Challenge and other volunteer events that Michael helps coordinate, perhaps the most unique is the team of 20 Johnson & Johnson Information Technology employees that participate in the annual Plane Pull. In this event, teams pull a Boeing 737 weighing over 93,000 lbs. on the Continental Airlines tarmac at Newark Liberty International Airport. When I met up with Michael and the team after the race, with temperature pushing 90, they still had so much energy, it looked like they were ready to go do the run again. I also was impressed to see so many of my colleagues get up WAY early on a Sunday morning – check-in time was 6:45 AM – to do this charity event.

And from my perspective, it was pretty cool to be able to hang out under the Hudson River in the Lincoln Tunnel. Except not stuck in traffic this time.

Ambulatório do Aidético
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ambulatório do Aidético provides medical care, psychological assistance, social help, and supplies of antiretrovirals to HIV-positive, low-income people in Rio de Janeiro. With help from Johnson & Johnson, Ambulatório continues its outpatient care and treatment program for more than 1,500 people, including this family.

(Photographer: Kelly Shimoda, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

Since Monday, two more videos have been added to the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube that help bring the report issued this week by Safe Kids USA to life.

The first provides different safety tips for parents of children who are between one and four years old:

The second video does the same for bigger kids, between five and ten years old: