HIV and AIDS might not necessarily be considered by South African companies to be
the primary health condition impacting on their production costs and influence related
interventions. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of automotive
companies' perceptions regarding the health conditions that impact on their
productions costs and their related workplace interventions. A cross sectional,
electronic survey was conducted amongst 167 companies from the automotive
manufacturing sector in South Africa, using stratified random sampling from a
representative South African database. The realized sample comprised 74 companies.
Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were conducted to investigate the
perceived health influencing factors impacting production costs, the monitoring
thereof, extent of containment, interventions implemented as well as perceived success
of workplace interventions to address company health challenges in terms of company
size (small, medium and large organisations) and ownership (multinational versus national). The health factors perceived to have a moderate to large impact are
HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol use, stress, back/neck ache and tuberculosis. These are
reported to be better monitored and managed by medium and large organisations.
Small organisations reported a smaller impact, fewer efforts and less success. Large
organisations have HIV/AIDS interventions while those with wellness programmes
seemed better able to monitor and manage health issues. Smaller organisations were
not convinced of the benefits of interventions in addressing health challenges. As the
impacting health conditions seemed linked, comprehensive and integrated wellness
programmes in health supportive environments are required to address the health
issues and ensure organisation competitiveness. Evidence for the effectiveness of
workplace wellness programmes in South African is limited and calls for the
evaluation of interventions as a priority. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/9271 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Meyer-Weitz, Anna. |
| Contributors | Buitendach, Johanna H. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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