Delia Roberts, Ph.D., FACSM

Workplace Wellness

More than 60% of adults work, and many spend 2,000 or more hours a year at work. Worksite wellness makes the places they work healthier. An ideal healthy worksite has opportunities for employees to: be physically active eat healthful foods and live tobacco-free. A 2002 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study noted that companies with physical activity programs for employees have reduced health care costs by 20 percent to 55 percent, reduced short-term sick leave by up to 32 percent and increased productivity by up to 52 percent. Delia Roberts, PhD, FACSM, comes on the show to discuss how worksite wellness can make the places that you work healthier places to be. How the companies with physical activity programs for employees have reduced health care costs by 20 percent to 55 percent, reduced short-term sick leave by up to 32 percent and increased productivity by up to 52 percent.

The winner of three scientific congress awards for outstanding scientific research, Delia Roberts received her doctorate in Medical Science (specialization: Exercise Biochemistry) from the University of Calgary. Dr. Roberts lectured at the University of Calgary and the National Sport Center from 1988-1997, subsequently joining the faculty of Selkirk College as an instructor in the Biology and Kinesiology programs. She received her fellowship from the American College of Sports Medicine in the fall of 2004 and regularly speaks at their meetings. She has also been an invited speaker at many other conferences and continues to publish her work in peer reviewed journals and book chapters. Dr. Roberts is President and Chief Research Scientist of FitSafe Solutions Inc.

Dr. Roberts' thesis research was the cornerstone of the altitude training program used by Longtrack Speedskating and Swimming Natation Canada and many of Canada's top athletes including gold medalists Catriona LeMay-Doan, Geatan Boucher, Mark Tewksbury, Carolyn Waldo,Michelle Cameron; silver medalists Susan Auch, Marianne Limpert; and bonze medalists Curtis Myden; Andrea Nugent, and Kevin Overland. Her involvement with applied sport science included attending three Olympic Games, three World Aquatic Championships, and three World Speedskating Championships in the capacity of team Sport Scientist. She has also been involved in the preparation of numerous other sports at all levels of competition and continues this work locally by providing sport science support to local athletes and members of the community (Red Mountain Sport Academies, the Kootenay Mountaineering Club, Triathlon and Ironman athletes and the Castlegar Minor Soccer and Hockey associations). Her research in this area now focuses on sport nutrition for enhanced performance as well as the use of sensorimotor (muscle reflex) training for the reduction of knee and back injuries.

Currently, Dr. Roberts is also bringing her expertise in exercise science to the field of occupational physiology by conducting research into the use of physical training and nutritional education for the reduction of occupational injuries and enhanced workplace productivity. Her training and nutritional program for tree-planters is available at www.selkirk.ca/treeplanting and has been adopted by Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd for use in all their forestlands operations. Over the six years of development and implementation of this program injury rates in tree-planters subscribing to the program have dropped from 20 percent to less than 3 percent. The program has spontaneously transferred to wildland firefighting and the construction industry, and continues to draw international attention. In 2005 Roberts began developing a similar program for ski professionals. Since implementation of the program, injury rates for ski guides have dropped from 10 percent to only 4 percent, and this year the program will be adapted to volunteer and professional ski and snowboard patrollers, instructors and lift attendants. Dr. Roberts has also worked with helicopter pilots and physicians as well as in forest harvesting and wood manufacturing. Currently she is also running a clinical trial of a new treatment for tendonosis.

Melanie Cole, M.S.

2 / 22 / 2011