The research is clear: workforce wellness drives community performance. But knowing that wellness matters and having a practical, affordable path to act on it are two different things. Most employee wellness programs require either meaningful budget increases or other financial tradeoffs that employees and employers are unwilling or unable to make. Prevent+Protect was built specifically to eliminate those financial barriers. It is a program designed by former local government leaders who understood both the urgency of the workforce challenge and the fiscal constraints that local governments face — and who set out to create a solution that works within those constraints, not around them. Most local governments already offer some form of wellness component within their group health plan. Prevent+Protect is designed to complement those existing programs — not replace them. Because the program encourages employees to engage with preventive and chronic-care resources, it can also reduce utilization of the employer’s traditional medical plan over time, which may help moderate future premium increases.

Prevent+Protect connects cities, towns, villages, counties, and other public agencies with resources and tools to simultaneously address the three dimensions of total wellness: physical health, mental health, and financial health. In addressing all three dimensions, local governments can:

• improve employee well-being and resilience,
• complement, not replace, existing health and wellness programs,
• strengthen recruitment and retention,
• improve employee job satisfaction, and
• manage rising health care costs.

Unlike other benefit options, Prevent+Protect’s affordable structure allows it to provide these resources and tools without decreasing employees’ pay and without increasing the employer’s benefit spend.