R.I. announces top Wellness Innovation winners

PROVIDENCE – The second annual Governor’s Awards for Wellness Innovation will be presented tomorrow to five community, work-site and educational organizations across Rhode Island, whose names were announced today.
Gov. Donald L. Carcieri will present the awards in a 9 a.m. ceremony in the State Room at the R.I. State House in Providence.
Top honors – the 2008 Governor’s Awards for Wellness Innovation – will go to Shape Up RI, a statewide nonprofit wellness organization; Kent Hospital in Warwick; Beacon Mutual Insurance Co., the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer; Mount Hope High School in Bristol, part of the Bristol Warren Regional School District; and the Town of East Greenwich. Another 11 organizations will be recognized with honorable mentions.
The awards are “an important way to recognize organizations that are innovative, creative and proactive in developing and maintaining worksite wellness programs,” Carcieri said last year in his first call for nominees. (READ MORE) “It is well-documented that employees and employers benefit when an organization makes wellness in the workplace a priority.”
In weighing candidates, “You’re looking for something that’s new or different that achieves the goal,” Dr. David R. Gifford, the state health director, told Providence Business News last year after the first round of winners was announced. (READ MORE)
The awards program aims to encourage public-sector and private-sector initiatives highlighting the importance of eating well, getting adequate exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, using seatbelts and avoiding tobacco.
It is part of Carcieri’s Wellness Initiative, which his office describes as “one of five pillars of the governor’s health care reform agenda.” The initiative’s stated goals are to promote healthy lifestyles among state residents and achieve a 50-percent reduction in the number of Rhode Islanders with unhealthy and unsafe habits by 2010.

News and information from the R.I. Governor’s Office are available at www.governor.ri.gov. To learn more about the R.I. Governor’s Awards for Wellness Innovation and the broader Governor’s Wellness Initiative, visit www.health.ri.gov.

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