May /J une 2015
D OI: 10.427 8/aj hp.29.5.tahp
Editor’s Desk: The Wellness Movement
T he National Wellness Institute (NWI) will host its 40th
Annual Wellness Conference in June, so this issue of
The Art of Health Promotion (TAHP) offers a tribute to NWI
by featuring thought leaders responsible for NWI’s extraor-
dinary success. It is fitting for the American Journal of Health
Promotion, which hosted its 25th Annual Conference this
year, to offer recognition to another veteran leader of the
wellness movement. And I was pleased to learn that my em-
ployer, StayWell, has the greatest number of speakers and
participants of any organization having attended the NWI
conference. We all grew up together! Siblings brimming
with affection, growing pains, latent rivalries, hard-won
wisdom, and lots of mutual respect.
Halbert Dunn, an MD and Chief of the National Office of
Vital Statistics, published the book High-Level Wellness in 1961.
Soon after, writers and speakers like Bill Hettler, NWI’s cofound-
er; Jack Travis; and Don Ardell popularized Dunn’s concepts.
I will be profiling Dr. Ardell and this era in a future issue of
TAHP. For an in-depth chronology of who influenced whom
in wellness, read “Wellness: The History and Development
of a Concept” by James Miller. Miller’s article is available as a
PDF at http://www.fh-joanneum.at/global/show_document.
asp?id=aaaaaaaaaabdjus&.
Building on this rich convergence of intellectuals and ideo-
logues, NWI has achieved a unique blend of art and science,
and attendees return often for personal renewal, professional
skill building, and the chance to bask in an unbound wellness
In This Issue
Editor’s Desk: The Wellness Movement
by Paul E. Terry, PhD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Past, Present, and Future of the Wellness
Movement: An Interview with Dr. Bill Hettler
by Brandan Hardie, MBA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Interconnectedness, Quantum Physics, and Awe
by Meg Jordan, PhD and Elaine Sullivan, MEd. . . . . . . 4
How Culture Interacts with the Concept of Wellness:
The Role Wellness Plays in a Global Environment
by Deborah A. Wilcox, PhD and John W. Travis, MD, MPH. . . . 6
The Multi-Dimensions of Wellness: The Vital Role
of Terms and Meanings
by R. Anne Abbott, PhD and William B. Baun, EPD,
FAWHP, CWP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Is Wellness Going Back to the Future?
by Paul E. Terry, PhD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Making Something Great! The 25th Annual Art
and Science of Health Promotion Conference
by Paul E. Terry, PhD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
TAHP-1
ideas for improving health outcomes
revival. As a statistician, Dunn undoubtedly ap-
preciated the differences between research-based
articles and the airing of opinions sans facts.
Nevertheless, his writings seem to emanate from
someone wanting to plant his mind in between
the two and see what crops up. Maybe it’s their
roots in the heartland of Stevens Point, Wiscon-
sin, but that’s also the open harvest I’ve felt NWI
loves to cultivate.
Halbert Dunn, MD
A fundamental difference between science
(1896–1975), coined journals and other media relates to the role of
the term wellness. evidence as it plays steward to the advancement
of knowledge. In newspapers or blogs, opinions,
ideology, and journalistic fact finding commingle and readers
navigate traffic accordingly. That the editor in chief of this Jour-
nal, Dr. Michael O’Donnell, named his conference The Art and
Science of Health Promotion reflects a discerning belief that a
fidelity to science can coexist in a pitch of ideas that also arise
from social, spiritual, and philosophical underpinnings.
In this issue of TAHP, conversations between eight of NWI’s
VIPs show how a multidimensional approach to wellness has
long been a tenet. NWI conference participants pace headlong
through inspiring speeches, community volunteerism, research
reviews, sunrise hatha yoga, and expert panels. Like conference
attendees, the leaders interviewed in this issue of TAHP traverse
heartily between art and science, and no one is directing traffic
because no one seems lost.
The NWI conference evokes the excitement of discovery, hu-
mility from things we can’t explain, and the expansiveness that
comes from asking ethereal questions. A benefit of longevity is
witnessing things come back around. In my closing commen-
tary, I describe the growing semantics in our field about mov-
ing from wellness to “well-being.” I interview wellness leaders
and ask whether we are going “back to the future.” At NWI, 40
years of hosting a discussion about holistic health has edified
thousands and left us in wonder that there is so much more to
learn. And sometimes when history repeats itself, it is for good
reason.
Paul E. Terry, PhD
Editor, The Art of Health Promotion
Senior VP and Chief Science Officer, StayWell
Blog your ideas and reactions at:
http://www.healthpromotionjournal.com/blog/
Follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/pauleterry
 The Past, Present, and Future of the Wellness Movement:
An Interview with Dr. Bill Hettler
Brandan Hardie, MBA
I t is early morning, September 13, 1964, and a nervous, excited,
and hopeful freshman class at the University of Wisconsin–Ste-
vens Point (UWSP) shuffles in to hear Dr. James Albertson, the
university’s then chancellor, deliver a convocation to welcome
them, inspire them, and begin their 4-year journey of learning and
discovery. The purpose of the “coming together” and the univer-
sity education overall, he tells the students, is to “help you progress
from where you are and have been to where you might go.”
Dr. Hettler fondly recounted this early and unsung leader of
the wellness movement as we spoke one recent January after-
noon. He reflected on a chancellor who not only cared about
the education of students, but was also intimately concerned
with the students’ personal growth and wellness. His convoca-
tion spent as much time reflecting on academic goals as it did
on personal, spiritual, athletic, social, and intellectual goals. It
was this environment that Dr. Hettler was drawn to as he looked
nationwide for a place to practice medicine…a place he could
make a difference.
Brandan Hardie: How did you learn about wellness? Tell me
about the inspiration and drivers that led to the creation of the
National Wellness Institute (NWI), the first organization with
wellness as its central mission?
Bill Hettler: The idea of doing something positive started long
before I got to Stevens Point. I was in medical school from 1965
to 1969. As I was studying I began to realize that much of what
we were doing as doctors was learning what was wrong with
people and then writing some sort of prescription to try to solve
that problem. As I learned more about medicine, I learned that
a lot of what was causing the illnesses was behaviors that had no
chance of being solved by writing a prescription 40 years too
late—prescriptions that we knew were often thrown away before
the patients even left the hospital grounds.
We never had anything in medical school about “health.” In
many ways, I learned about wellness by accident. For instance, I
had a classmate who studied transcendental meditation in India
one summer. He introduced the methods of meditation to me
and our medical classmates when he returned. In our physiolo-
gy labs we were able to test the impact of this deep mindfulness,
and it was mind-blowing for me. I knew the medicines and what
they would do, and all of the side effects…But here was some-
thing free, you could do it anywhere, without any expense, and
it had no negative side effects, and it worked on a physiological
level. It was like, “What else don’t I know?”
The final week we were in medical school, our class was ad-
dressed by a professor of public health, Dr. John Phair. Most
of the class stopped listening to him right away because he
addressed us as “boys” and we were “men.” There were only
two women in our class of 98 students, and it is fortunate that
things have changed dramatically in that respect. I only listened
because I was in the front row and in his direct line of sight. He
said, “You boys will save more lives and alleviate more suffering
if you never practice medicine.” He went on to describe that
if you teach people how to live in the first place, a lot of these
diseases we were being taught to treat would never happen.
Although he didn’t have a way to do that yet, I thought, “There
is something right about this.”
TAHP-2
Bill Hettler, MD
Bill Hettler is a cofounder of the National Wellness
Institute and served as staff physician and the direc-
tor of the health service and lifestyle improvement
program at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens
Point. Bill is one of the creators of the National Well-
ness Conference. See: http://www.hettler.com/
Finally, I have always been heavily involved in the YMCA.
In the 1890s Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick introduced the Spirit-
Mind-Body triangle at Springfield College, the YMCA Training
School. The idea of whole-person wellness had thus always been
in the back of my mind from an early age.
UWSP is often thought of as the birthplace of the wellness
movement. It had the first student wellness program, the first
degree program, and helped to launch the NWI. Could the
movement have started someplace else?
I chose UWSP after the air force because of the community
of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and the chance to interact with
people early in their lives. Chancellor Albertson had already laid
the groundwork for this concept. I walked into the university,
and they didn’t call it wellness, but the philosophy was already
there. It was a fertile environment. Although Albertson was
already gone when I arrived, he had hired a whole bunch of
people that had that same philosophy…teaching people how to
live well.
This environment allowed me to create the Lifestyle Assess-
ment Questionnaire (LAQ) to measure student wellness as part
of the university’s mission. Not only did this tool measure health
and lifestyle choices, but it also gave students resources to
improve their wellness. Again, the ideas of wellness were already
there. From Gulick at the YMCA in the 1890s, Halbert Dunn’s
speeches on wellness in Unitarian churches in the ’50s and
’60s, and Dr. Albertson at UWSP in the 1960s, I was just able to
help to make those ideas operational. In 1976 we programmed
the LAQ using a mainframe computer. The current chancellor,
Lee S. Dreyfus, supported what we were doing and saw it as a
recruiting tool. He supported me being on the road as much as
possible to talk about health issues and how UWSP would not
only educate students, but also teach them how to live well.
How did the National Wellness Conference start?
The conference came first and was called the Wellness Promo-
tion Strategies Conference back then. The LAQ had helped
to get our name out, and the work we were doing to promote
student health and wellness was well known through my travels.
The conference was not only a good place for those interested
in wellness to come together, it was also one central time parties
interested in student wellness could come to campus to learn
our methods, as opposed to the many individual visits we had
been getting. In 1978, with the help of a university colleague
named Bob Bowen who was looking for summer work, we held
the Third Annual Wellness Promotion Strategies conference.
We called a bunch of people we had never met, but had read
about, and asked them to come. We called it the “Third Annual”
because we didn’t think anyone would want to come to the
“First Annual” conference. That year, 250 attended from all over
the country.
How did the NWI start?
The Institute was inspired by Fred Leafgren, the UWSP Direc-
tor of Residential Life; Dennis Elsenrath, the Director of the
UWSP Counseling Center; and me, Director of the University
Medical Center. We began as a group of educators trying to help
students through wellness assessments and resources. We were a
great team that believed in the university’s mission of teaching
students how to live well. The institute (primarily a conference
and LAQ) was part of the university’s foundation in the early
years until it grew too large and was considered “unrelated busi-
ness income.” So in 1989 we formed the separate nonprofit. We
struggled in some of those early years, but it got better and grew
because of the people who were willing to help make it happen.
Did you ever expect that the wellness movement would grow to
what it is today? What contributed to the growth?
I have been enjoying the ride. I have always been a big thinker. I
really never thought it would stop because it was the right thing
to be doing. It makes sense. We were and are successful because
we allowed ourselves the chance to deliver programs to people
to help them learn to live in a different way. We put a lot of en-
ergy into bringing in functionality that made these ideas work.
Also, I was always thinking, “If we are going to make a differ-
ence in a community, we need to first of all figure out where
TAHP-3
people come together.” If you target people where they already
come together and then try to infiltrate those groups with some
programming ideas, you might have some success every once in
a while.
What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong or what do
we need to do more of?
The Affordable Care Act, I am thrilled that we finally got some-
thing passed that helps the poorest in our country.
I don’t think we are missing anything. At times I think we are
doing too much. We need to bring it back down to connecting
people with people. We need to bring it back down to cultural
support. People come back for the connectedness. But overall, I
am thrilled with the success I see.
What does it mean for wellness that so many of the efforts and
energy are concentrated around the worksite?
In terms of wellness and worksites, if you go back to my origi-
nal idea: is there any place where people come together for
more hours a week than the worksite? No. Places of worship are
another place where people come together. I believe in social
connectedness and wherever that happens, it is a good thing.
I’m disappointed that university wellness programs, another key
place where people come together, are being cut as administra-
tions try to rein in budgets.
What is most important in terms of return on investment
(ROI) is that the true ROI, the true cost of operations, and the
most important assets, are the people.
Brandan Hardie, MBA, is Executive Director of the National Wellness
Institute.
 Interconnectedness, Quantum Physics, and Awe
Meg Jordan, PhD and Elaine Sullivan, MEd
M eg Jordan: Elaine, you have been considered a major leader
in the wellness movement for more than 30 years, especial-
ly when it comes to advocating for the inclusion of the feminine,
the immaterial, the emotional, and the spiritual dimensions. Why
is that important?
Elaine Sullivan: We have lived nearly 400 years under the 17th-
century worldview developed largely from the reality put forth
by great thinkers such as Descartes, Newton, Bacon, and others.
These great thinkers spawned the Scientific Revolution and the
description of reality we know as the Cartesian/Newtonian para-
digm. The universe was to them a great machine. In this mecha-
nistic/reductionistic approach the universe was divided into two
parts: material (objective, quantitative, and measurable) and im-
material (thoughts, emotions, human consciousness, which were
seen as subjective and consequently not worth study or attention).
Mastery over the natural world, as we experience it today, followed.
Belief in the natural superiority of men and masculine values
over women and feminine values was scientifically reinforced
and sanctioned by this patriarchal worldview. Those of us who
have lived through the women’s movement and the struggle
to have our voices heard and our values affirmed know the
“power-over” of that worldview. What we knew in our hearts and
bodies—our subjective knowing—was totally dismissed. Wisdom,
intuition, emotion, spirit—what Dr. Rachel Remen calls the
softer things—were ignored and discounted. What you could
not measure did not exist.
Meg: I’ve heard you speak so much in your presentations at
NWI [the National Wellness Institute] about “both/and”—about
the way we need to embrace paradox and make room for the
middle ground or even uncertainty for true well-being, and to
avoid the traps of fundamentalist thinking. Tell us more about
that, and what’s vital for wellness practitioners to know.
Elaine: In the worldview being shaped by quantum physics, a
new reality for our culture is emerging where what seemed to be
opposites are actually deeply connected: body/mind, masculine/
feminine, objective/subjective, thinking/feeling, rationality/
intuition, internal/external, shadow/light, head/heart. Niels
Bohr, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist, stated, “The opposite
of a true statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a pro-
found truth can be another profound truth.” The world is found
not by splitting the world into either/or, but by embracing it as
both/and—by understanding paradox. Bohr also affirmed that
if we want to know what is essential, we must stop thinking the
world into pieces and start thinking it together again.
I believe the relatively new science of quantum physics chal-
lenges us to see the complexity of wellness. It is not solely linear
left-brain oriented; it is a system of interrelationships. I believe
the essence of wellness begins deep within the human heart—
that place where intellect, emotion, will, and spirit reside. I
believe the essence of spirituality is relationship: relationship to
myself, to others, to the earth, and to a higher power (knowing
each person has to define the way this is expressed) and an on-
going search for meaning and purpose. I believe in the vast in-
TAHP-4
Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, CWP
Meg Jordan is Copresident (2014–2016) of the Na-
tional Wellness Institute and is Chair and Professor of
Integrative Health Studies and Somatic Psychology
at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San
Francisco. She is editor and founder of American
Fitness magazine and author of several books, in-
cluding The Fitness Instinct and How to Be a Health
Coach. See: http://www.megjordan.com/megjordan.
com/Home.html
Elaine Sullivan, MEd, LPC, LMFT
Elaine Sullivan is a nationally recognized advocate
of holistic wellness. The National Wellness Institute
recognized her lifetime contributions in the field of
health and wellness by honoring her as the recipient
of the Halbert L. Dunn Award in 2010. See:
http://www.sullivancounselingandconsulting.com/
elainesullivan.html
ner space within each one of us, the place of our story. I believe
wellness that is sustained moves from the inside out and outside
in. What is taken in from my environment affects the life within;
what rests in my own inner landscape, in my unconscious, is
always affecting the way I live—my deeply held beliefs, attitudes,
emotions, and behaviors. I believe I nurture and grow to know
the depth of my inner life through silence, quiet, relationships,
communing with nature, images, poetry, story, listening, meta-
phor, reading, meditation, a sense of awe and wonder. When
I nurture that inner space I return to my true self. I take full
responsibility for who I am and the choices I make. I become
vitally alive and bring this aliveness to all my relationships.
Meg: Who has been an inspiration to you?
Elaine: Roger Walsh, currently professor of psychiatry, philoso-
phy, and anthropology, at the University of California–Irvine.
Walsh wrote:
From early adolescence, science was my god, and the only
question was “What kind of scientist am I going to be?” I went
to medical school in Australia and then came to Stanford
University. Promptly I found myself in a completely different
world. People were talking about accessing the unconscious,
getting in touch with emotions, and so forth. It was just nuts
to me. Yet I began to appreciate that some of these people
seemed to have a sensitivity and wisdom that I was missing.
Perhaps the most crucial change was that I became aware of
my internal subjective experiences. Eventually this unveiled
the inner world of emotions, images, intuition, and thoughts
that I have been oblivious to. I had been absolutely out of
contact with myself. I felt that I had spent my entire life living
on just the top six inches of a wave on top of an ocean that I
hadn’t known existed. It blew me away that there was an inner
universe as vast and mysterious as the outer universe and that
I could have spent my entire life unaware of it.
 Another inspiration is Rachel Remen, MD, who wrote, “The
need to recover awe and mystery in our medicine may simply point
to a culture-wide need to recover awe and mystery in our lives. We
may all need to know a little less and wonder a little more.”
Meg: So, you’ve covered a lot of philosophical food for thought
here. In a word, what is wellness to you?
Elaine: Interconnection. In the past years, I believe we at
NWI have worked to develop a holistic model of wellness that
embraces the integration of mind, body, and spirit. I believe
we have begun to integrate into the wellness field the tenets
of the new worldview that demonstrates interconnection—the
relationships, the complexity of any given experience. I believe
emotional, spiritual, and social wellness—though not always
measurable—are critical in the developing field of wellness.
Elaine: Meg, if you remember, I’m the one who pushed for you
to be on the NWI board. And now, you’re the first woman leader
as copresident in the organization’s 40-year history. Where is
your focus for the organization?
Meg: That’s right, Elaine. I always have you to thank for my
involvement with this great organization, and it’s been exciting
to help NWI expand in its commitment of professional develop-
ment and personal enrichment for wellness professionals. We
also have a female executive director, Brandan Hardie, who has
helped us leap into the 21st century, a staff of six women and
finally one man. This makeup reflects our current membership,
the vast majority of whom are women. But even our male lead-
ers, my copreasident John Munson and past president Bill Baun,
have all recognized that the wellness profession is run primarily
by hardworking women throughout the nation, although they
don’t always have the top positions. Now, all this is in contrast to
the dominant narrative about the birth of NWI—that a few fellas
got together for a first wellness conference, but actually called
it the third. Hence, we’re having a grand 40th celebration this
summer at the annual conference in Minneapolis (June 12–15).
But I think the idea of wellness was part of a massive cultural
zeitgeist in the 1970s fueled by troubling insights that our
lifestyles were killing us. That wake-up call resounded in the
hospital corridors where I worked as a cardiac RN, rehabilitat-
ing heart disease patients. We looked at debilitating workplace
stress, the lies of Big Tobacco, not to mention Big Food, and
how the built environment seemed to engineer physical move-
ment out of everyday life. The jogging craze hit. Everybody
aerobicized. We thought the world would catch on and wellness
would no longer be a scoffed-at word.
Elaine: So, mission accomplished?
Meg: Far from it, I’m sorry to say. While “wellness” is no longer
an unusual word, it has come to include everything from vitamin
supplements to dog spas. As far as personal responsibility to adopt
a wellness lifestyle, we need to drive the message home amidst new
challenges. Here we are—40 years later, and we’re faced with the
fact that the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]
has declared “sitting disease” to be a risk factor that may outweigh
several others. In fact, if you sit for 11 hours a day or more, you are
40% more likely to die from any cause. That’s mind-blowing. But
we never could have predicted the extent to which the digital revo-
lution and our addiction to screens would have altered the course
of human health. We’re now tracking research that kids who have
TAHP-5
more than 6 hours a day with screens endanger their capacity to
recognize emotions on human faces. Wellness professionals need
to lead the charge on every dimension of wellness.
Elaine: You’ve been called a cultural trend spotter by USA Today
for your writings and provocative presentations. What other
trends do you see today for wellness professionals?
Meg: As a medical anthropologist, I examine the cultural trends
that underpin society. Right now I see four big ideas.
1. Health and wellness coaching will become a recognized pro-
fession with a national certification and greater acceptance
by the public, medical providers, and insurance companies.
Coaching for lifestyle improvement is a vital part of halting
the growth of chronic disease. It’s the supportive alliance
that helps people finally change what they haven’t been
able to on their own. Watch for emerging standards and a
national certification examination from the National Con-
sortium for Credentialing Health and Wellness Coaches and
supportive workshops from NWI.
2. Wellness professionals will continue to migrate findings
from the Era of the Brain and neuroscience to assist in the
arduous task of adopting healthful habits. This includes
some cutting-edge work on rewiring neural connections for
healthful new habits, as well as unwiring negative emotion-
ally laden memories that sabotage good intentions. Expect
more tips from researchers who are unlocking the emotion-
al brain and providing a much-needed bootstrap for shifts in
mindset and behavioral change.
3. We will deepen our connection to the natural world. From
recognizing the gut microbiome to the need for kids to play
in the dirt in order to have a healthy immune system to the
importance of Wi-Fi–free vacations, the link between per-
sonal and planetary health will grow undeniable, hopefully
for all. Adopting a sport like triathlons or sailing (my per-
sonal favorite) can reinforce this natural-world connection.
4. We will look at resolving a serious risk to health that is seldom
discussed—loneliness and the lack of social belonging. I can’t
emphasize enough how this is an evolutionary imperative. From
the dawn of Homo sapiens more than 200,000 years ago, we lived
in groups of no less than 9 to 12, where our neuroendocrine
systems evolved in lockstep with social cooperation in small
groups. I believe we’ll see how well-connected, interdependent,
small groups still serve our possibilities for human flourishing.
Elaine: What needs to change, if anything, for wellness profes-
sionals?
Meg: My university (California Institute of Integral Studies) is a
block from Twitter headquarters, the epicenter of Silicon Valley in
San Francisco, with thousands of overly wired, fried 20- to 30-year-
olds. They don’t need to be more engaged, they need less engage-
ment with work, and more sleep, play, and mindful relaxation. But
when a “Culture of Engagement” expert worked with one compa-
ny, the company honestly didn’t make the connection to personal
health—just organizational productivity. I think we’re headed for
a cortisol-whiplashed workforce in tech, an American-bred version
of karosi, the Japanese word for death by overwork. Wellness profes-
sionals have their work cut out for them, once again.
 How Culture Interacts with the Concept of Wellness:
The Role Wellness Plays in a Global Environment
Deborah A. Wilcox, PhD and John W. Travis, MD, MPH
D eborah Wilcox: How has the wellness movement changed or
stayed the same?
Jack Travis: It has been a stillbirth. My inspiration came from
Halbert Dunn’s High-Level Wellness (1961), which I found in
1971 on the clearance table at Johns Hopkins Medical Book
Store when I was in my residency in preventive medicine. It has
a far greater scope of wellness than anything I’ve seen today.
We attempted to follow his vision in the ’70s with my cen-
ter, but it wasn’t financially viable in that era. At least Dunn’s
concept caught on, largely thanks to Don Ardell, who wrote
High-Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease
(1976), and our (Don’s and my) appearance with Dan Rather
on 60 Minutes in 1979. At one point in the ’80s, there were thou-
sands of hospital wellness centers, but most of them discovered,
as I did, that you can’t make enough money on the services of a
wellness center to stay open without subsidies.
Also the medical profession’s co-opting the term wellness
dumbed down wellness so badly that only the physical dimen-
sion of Dunn’s four—physical, mental, emotional, and spiri-
tual—survived. Nowadays, the best programs seem to only cover
nutrition, fitness, and stress reduction.
Deborah Wilcox: I came into the wellness movement quite
differently, first on a personal level by growing up playing lots
of sports, teaching swimming, and lifeguarding in my forma-
tive years through college. Like many baby boomers, I grew up
being active and sitting down with my parents at dinnertime for
nutritious meals, doing homework, attending church, and being
involved in community groups. I had a well-rounded experience
growing up, and those were the days that I didn’t know anything
about the wellness wheel (LOL).
I entered the wellness movement in 2006 in a more formal role,
as a member of an applied research team to promote evidence-
based and clinical best practices that address the wellness, recovery,
and holistic health care needs of persons who suffered with severe
and persistent mental illness and substance abuse challenges.
Where do you think the wellness movement is going?
Jack: I think it is going all over the place because the definitions of
wellness are so varied. I teach an online course, Wellness Assess-
ment and Health Analysis, at the Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology (Australia), and one of the biggest struggles is finding
a definition of wellness that everyone agrees on—there isn’t one.
We required six different definitions in the Wellness Workbook,
which are rather wordy, but we think they cover it pretty well.
I am optimistic now that at least wellness is getting a lot of air-
time, and, as a result, I hope some people will start to recognize
what Dunn’s original broad and holistic approach was. That was
60 years ago and we still haven’t come close to it!
On Halbert Dunn’s definition of wellness.
Jack: Dunn’s definition included the four dimensions of mental,
emotional, physical, and spiritual. If a wellness program doesn’t
TAHP-6
Deborah A. Wilcox, PhD
Deborah Wilcox is the founder/CEO of CONFLU-
ENCY Consultants and Associates and serves on the
board of the National Wellness Institute. She is the
recipient of the 2014 Multicultural Award of Distinc-
tion from the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association,
which recognizes her outstanding contribution to
the field of psychiatric rehabilitation. See: https://
www.saybrook.edu/academic-affairs/facultyprofiles/
deborah_wilcox
John W. Travis, MD, MPH
Jack Travis was with the U.S. Public Health Service’s
Division of Health Services Research. He opened the
Wellness Resource Center in 1975 and is the creator
of the Wellness Inventory and the founder and
codirector of Wellness Associates, a consulting and
publishing group. See: http://www.wellpeople.com/
John_Travis.aspx
address all four of those areas, then it is only a partial approach
to wellness. His formal definition was, “An integrated method of
functioning that is oriented towards maximizing the potential of
which the individual is capable within the environment in which
he is functioning.”1 I think that pretty much covers it—pretty
generic, but I don’t see many modern definitions that broad.
Deborah: Hearing Dunn’s definition around “integrating func-
tioning” reminds me of an article by Young and Ensign2 (1999)
that discusses the concept of flourishing as an optimal state of
mental health recovery for those persons who have psychiatric
disabilities. The integration of the whole person allows the
person to flourish as opposed to just healing from one illness.
The integration permits a person to define optimal health and
wellness for themselves.
How do you see culture interacting with wellness?
Deborah: We are in the fourth and fifth forces of the evolution
of health care nationally and internationally. Allied health pro-
fessions in both behavioral and physical health have adopted
cultural competency standards of best practices and care. The
professions have put forth cultural competency as the founda-
tion for ethical practice, indicating all practitioners should get
in touch with themselves as cultural beings so they are able to
understand how to work with other people within their cultural
contexts. Practitioners have to learn everyone is shaped by their
cultural socialization, which determines their view of the world,
values, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and
language, and takes into consideration all human differences
that have to be honored and respected. The fifth-force move-
ment in the allied professions is the current social justice move-
ment that calls for providing equitable good treatment and
good care for all people, and that we have to close the health
and wellness gap in this country. This is the time for empower-
ment, voice, and choice for everyone in both the administer-
 John Travis Developed a Continuum Contrasting the Treatment and Wellness Paradigms
ing and the receiving of health and wellness services in our
country.
Jack: The problem with the word culture, like wellness, is that
it has so many definitions. From your use of “multicultural,” it
refers to specific subsets of the populations, whether based on
race or sexual orientation. I think of culture in the larger con-
text of the overlying rules of patriarchy—the dominant culture
that has been on this planet for about 5,000 to 7000 years. It
requires that we look up to authority and expect to be told what
to do and basically, we have to fit in or we are labeled misfits.
That horrible term well-adjusted reveals this invisible force—well-
adjusted to what?
My mentor, Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Magical
Child, has a wonderful talk on culture, and basically he says,
culture is the enemy of our freedom and the idea of trying to
improve culture, reform culture, is part of the built-in catch-22.
Freedom and culture as we know it are antithetical. His work is
classic and profoundly questions the current thinking on child-
birth practices, parenting, and educating our children. Now
his daring ideas about how Western society is damaging our
children, and how we can better nurture them and ourselves,
ring truer than ever.
What do we, as wellness practitioners and as a National Wellness
Institute (NWI), still need to work on?
Jack: First I want to mention that NWI has an international fol-
lowing and I snag a little on “national” in the title.
Having lived in Australia for 15 years, I’m aware of the
America-centric thinking that most Americans are clueless
about. There’s huge world out there, and some of it is more
progressive than the United States, especially in sick care and
infant mortality.
Mostly, I think we constantly need to work on ourselves,
instead of being preachers. We need to walk our talk, and I’ve
long believed that we teach what we need to learn. Also that
we are what we hate or love. The people we tend to idealize or
despise are both projections of our own shadow.
I believe that is the most powerful and important work of
wellness, which is rarely addressed, is to recognize our own
shadow projections and challenge ourselves to constantly stretch
our boundaries in safe environments with likeminded people.
On the NWI Comprehensive Multicultural Competency Initiative
Deborah: The NWI Board has unanimously approved moving
forward with the implementation of a comprehensive multicul-
TAHP-7
tural competency initiative. During the upcoming 2015 National
Conference there will be an inaugural Multicultural Compe-
tency Academy that will offer a social justice perspective on
wellness and health care service delivery and will offer tools and
strategies aligned with culturally competent best practices for
the conference attendees, membership, and related constituen-
cies. This academy will provide participants with a safe space for
active engagement in deliberative conversations and dialogues
addressing issues related to effective interventions addressing
health equity and health inequalities, grassroots mobilization
and advocacy, multicultural competency in organizational de-
velopment, assessment and corporate wellness, and community
policing and wellness. Overall, the academy’s goal is to support
inclusiveness and foster the building of healthy and civil com-
munities.
What does NWI mean to you and how does it play a role in the
wellness movement?
Jack: For me, it has been the sponsoring of conferences that
have generated many lasting friendships and connected me with
likeminded colleagues for nearly 40 years. It continues to raise
the awareness of wellness for thousands of people and provide
a forum for discussion and evolution of the field. I hope it will
embrace Halbert Dunn’s contributions. I hope it will make his
work more visible.
Deborah: For me, my first exposure to the NWI was fairly re-
cent. In 2012 a colleague and I submitted a proposal to present
a workshop on the applied community-based research we were
involved with in the state of Ohio that focused on the wellness
and holistic health care needs of adults and their families affect-
ed by serious emotional disturbances and mental illness. How-
ever, more importantly, this was my first NWI conference and
I remember to this day how I was treated upon arrival by the
conference staff. They were enthusiastic and genuinely warm
and engaging, and included me and other new conference
attendees in a lot of fun community building and fun activities
on the first day that we arrived on campus at the University of
Wisconsin–Stevens Point.
In 2014, I along with other board members who serve on
the Multicultural Competency Committee (MCC), developed
a report comprised of recommendations to the NWI board
titled Enhancing Cultural Competency and Promoting Diversity in
the Practice and Education of Wellness. The submitters of this re-
port collectively believe that there is an opportunity and a re-
sponsibility of the NWI to advance cultural competency of its
members and promote programming and practices designed
to address the needs of a multicultural population, member-
ship, and related constituencies. One of the stated missions
of the MCC is to support the NWI in the achievement of its
mission and foster inclusiveness to advance multicultural
competency within comprehensive wellness best practices
and service delivery. This cultural competency enterprise will
be one of the major initiatives that will support the NWI’s
adherence to its stated mission and contribute a great deal to
the continued growth of the organization and to the wellness
movement.
The Multi-Dimensions of Wellness:
The Vital Role of Terms and Meanings
A Conversation Between R. Anne Abbott, PhD and William B. Baun, EPD, FAWHP, CWP
B ill Baun: What does wellness mean to you and how do you see
it playing out in your work?
Anne Abbott: People still have many different interpretations
of the term wellness. Wellness is a transformative process that
reflects our choices through life challenges. We are always in
motion, transforming energy, constantly changing as we try
to stay in a balanced state of homeostasis. Wellness requires
experiential learning, which is more than “earning” or “knowl-
edge.” One must experience the change, i.e., live through the
challenge, vs. just understand theoretically. It is action in our
behaviors that allows our heads, hearts, and hands to align with
our human value.
Wellness or well-being is multidimensional. Wellness requires
a disciplined practice to become holistic through moving to-
ward balance in all dimensions of wellness.
Bill Baun: Anne, I hear you, but in my world we have stopped
using the term balance and now talk about effectiveness. Feeling I
have to reach a state of balance can be very stressful, but work-
ing to be effective at the different dimensions of my life can be
challenging and uplifting.
From a National Wellness Institute (NWI) standpoint, the
challenges around worksite wellness center on the practitioner.
NWI has always been about the practitioner. As an industry
and as an organization, we must strive to keep the practitioner
updated. Once practitioners enter the field, they are often bom-
barded with the day-to-day, and they lose the connection to the
literature and best practices. If we as an organization are able
to provide a learning community that keeps these practitioners
engaged and updated, then we are doing our job and fulfilling
our mission. We need to remind them of their skills and to use
them, beyond just the doing of the job.
Do we need a common language in worksite wellness?
Anne: We must have a common language. Terminology has
been and remains one of the biggest problems in the implemen-
tation of wellness and health promotion programs. We need to
have a clear understanding of what wellness and well-being are
vs. health education, disease management, safety and risk man-
agement, public health, population health, and health promo-
tion. We need clear definitions to be operational in implement-
TAHP-8
References
1. Dunn H. High Level Wellness. Arlington, Va: R. W. Beatty Co; 1961.
2. Young SL, Ensing DS. Exploring recovery from the perspective of
people with psychiatric disabilities. Psych Rehab J. 1999;22:219–231.
Editor’s note: See this Journal’s blog page to learn more from
Deborah Wilcox about a Coordinating Center of Excellence to
assist with wellness and recovery services in community mental
health and from John Travis on the Alliance for Transforming
the Lives of Children.
R. Anne Abbott, PhD, FAACVPR, CWWPH
Anne Abbott is a Professor Emeritus in Health Promo-
tion and Wellness at the University of Wisconsin–
Stevens Point. She was the recipient of a National
Wellness Institute (NWI) Leadership Award in 2009,
and currently serves on the NWI Board of Directors
and the Board of Experts for publication of The
Exercise Standards and Malpractice Reporter. See:
http://www.uwsp.edu/HPHD/Pages/facultyStaff/
aAbbott_bib.aspx
William B. Baun, EPD, FAWHP, CWP
Bill Baun is the Wellness Officer at The University
of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas. In addition, Bill is the Past President of the
National Wellness Institute (NWI) Board of Directors
and in 2014 he was the recipient of NWI’s Lifetime
Achievement Award. See: https://www.linkedin.com/
pub/william-baun-epd-cwp-fawhp/4/631/b85
ing effective wellness programs, including the Affordable Care
Act.
Bill: Anne, you are so right. Our stakeholders have a hard time
understanding us and thus believing in us because we have not
done a good job of standardizing our core terms. Return on
investment (ROI), value of investment, and cost-effectiveness
are also some good examples.
Are wellness ideas able to integrate with health promotion and
benefits programs?
Anne: Wellness is about being well and has evolved into
programming that creates personal well-being and a work
culture that supports the health and well-being of individu-
als. Unfortunately, the health promotion and benefits form of
wellness delivery systems splits efforts into bottom-line analysis,
marketing, competition, capitalism, and behavioral econom-
ics. This environment, along with political ideology, has not
helped us to be more collaborative with the other professional
disciplines.
Academic training programs have not helped to clear the
confusion in terminology. In early ’80s health promotion in cor-
 “ The multidimensional model of wellness: spiritual, physical, emotional,
occupational, intellectual, social, and environmental.
porate America actually moved away from the term wellness and
the scientific community moved away from the term holistic.
Thankfully, the mid-’80s also brought about the University of
Wisconsin–Stevens Point’s (UWSP’s) health and wellness degree
program that moved away from the focus on physical well-being
to a multidimensional model of wellness (spiritual, physical,
emotional, occupational, intellectual, social, and environmen-
tal). I, with Drs. John Munson and Jane Jones, created this first
health and wellness degree program (1986–89) around this
multidimensional model. The idea was to address the complex-
ity of the whole person. The program has served as the model
for numerous other programs across the United States and
abroad. Currently, NWI also follows this model, working collab-
oratively across wellness and corporate disciplines to cross-train
wellness, multidisciplined professionals.
Bill: We are learning how to be better collaborators. Collabo-
ration in the industry will require all of our leaders working
together over time to create consistency of our wellness voice.
Wellness professionals bring years of experience of not just
worksite management, but knowledge in all of the wellness
dimensions and human values. This is a strength and what NWI
brings to the table, but it requires collaboration to bring these
elements together for sustainable culture change.
What are the strengths of the multidimensional model in a work-
site environment?
Anne: On the academic side, we found the seven-dimensional
wellness model allowed us fewer constraints on designing a com-
petency-based curriculum for entry-level professionals to meet
varied employers’ needs. The design also created a promotional
and communication base that served as the foundation for the
employee wellness programs on campus at UWSP. Employee
wellness became our living laboratory for student learning in
the health and wellness degree program.
In retrospect, we have found that being well is the common
value that brings people together to be collaborative. Hav-
ing a common value is the basis of collaboration, connection,
community, and sustainability. Wellness has become transdisci-
plinary, in that it integrates and has brought multidisciplinary
health professionals together with the consumer, business, and
health benefits. Everyone wants to be well, including multicul-
tural and multigenerational populations.
Bill: Anne, what’s exciting now at NWI is that our board is fo-
cused on building a stronger multicultural and multigeneration-
al membership. The global worksite wellness challenges we face
will take wellness solutions developed by wellness professionals
representing the diversity in our communities. NWI recognizes
this need and is working toward a goal of more diversity! In fact,
this year we will hold a Multicultural Academy at our national
conference.
So where did NWI fit in all of this? What role does NWI have to
play moving forward?
TAHP-9
”
Anne: The early days of NWI conferences brought early leaders
from many disciplines together from around the United States
and the world and led to discussions that developed broader
wellness concepts with practical applications.
Through NWI’s convergence of many areas of wellness, from
humanistic to clinical practices, holistic wellness was debated.
Research concepts eventually emerged, and collaborative teach-
ing/facilitation skills were developed and instituted. These
events eventually defined the functional aspects of becoming
well and the multidimensional aspects of wellness programs. By
1993, consumers caught on and demanded change in the medi-
cal system.
Bill: Anne, I love to hear the history. My first start in worksite
wellness was at Tenneco where we had a multifaceted team
(occupational health, wellness, employee assistance program,
and safety) all working and reporting together. When I came to
NWI there were few worksites represented, but it was an open
culture that accepted individuals for who they were and what
they brought to the group. I kept coming back not only because
of my worksite friends at NWI, but because of the community
that cared about wellness and me. I think NWI will always be the
melting pot moving forward where people with different health
and wellness backgrounds can share ideas.
How did NWI help to bring the concept of wellness into the
mainstream?
Anne: Having been developed through the UWSP Student Life
Program and the YMCA camp influence, NWI became the “fun
and feel-good group.” As a young American College of Sports
Medicine clinical exercise physiologist, I was skeptical. How-
ever, when I realized from my early days in hospitals that white
coats could not answer many of my questions about why people
change, coupled with my own transformational process, I came
to a better understanding of what wellness was. I started seeking
different models to integrate into cardiac rehabilitation that
included alternative options that seemed to be working in the
public and consumer markets. My patients became my teach-
ers. I eventually hired UWSP’s and NWI’s Dr. Bill Hettler as a
keynote conference speaker, attended a workshop with Elaine
Sullivan and John Travis, and finally attended NWI’s National
Wellness Conference. As a result, I left a large hospital and
urban life to move to rural Wisconsin and join the “fun and
feel-good group.” Subsequently, I became the new Director of
Health Promotion and Wellness at UWSP and was charged with
helping to develop a new profession.
Bill: In my early years at NWI it was very exciting to experience
the personal development and the community that the confer-
ence offered. But as I grew, I also started to question why we did
what we were doing on the worksite side. Why didn’t we use a
more community or public health approach? This started my
lifelong learning around developing cultures of wellness.
Later this passion for developing cultures of wellness eventu-
ally resulted in my collaboration on NWI’s worksite certifica-
tions. We teach that “we don’t do wellness alone.” Successful
wellness programs include bringing families, teams, and orga-
nizations together as supportive cultures. A culture of wellness
is one that creates a community that shares a passion to be well,
and the need to pass it on. It is self-sustaining. I truly believe
that NWI’s reframing of its vision and mission has the opportu-
nity to impact the whole world.
Bringing wellness into the mainstream was about gathering
the collective voices that were interested in topics such as work-
site wellness. I started the Worksite Academy at the National
Wellness Conference with George Pfeiffer because people were
asking for more opportunities to collaborate. “When can we talk
next?” We realized that there was a community that wanted to
be together more.
What role do data now play in our programs?
Bill: I keep wondering if data analytics is a good decision maker
for humans or for health care. At times I feel like we have taken
the “caring” dimension out of our programs. That’s what I have
always liked about the NWI wellness model or the seven-dimen-
sion model you have used; they keep us honestly caring for one
another. Data are very important in our programs, but at times
programmers rely on the data more than on the intuitive data
gained in the relationships or in really listening to the people
we serve.
Anne: I think the reemergence of “human value” is the most
important ingredient that makes ROI work. It is more about hu-
Is Wellness Going Back to the Future?
Paul E. Terry, PhD
W hen beliefs persist within a group for a long time, we
call this “tradition.” In this respect, traditional wellness
means the colorful interaction of mental, emotional, physi-
cal, spiritual, and, well, you would be hard pressed to name
a dimension that has not found its way onto someone’s well-
ness wheel. I use the word “colorful” decidedly because if you
Google the term “dimensions of wellness” using the images
tab you will find hundreds of vivid paletttes in homage to
multidimensional wellness. By tradition, wellness has never
been primarily about physical health. Nevertheless, the past
year marks a growing interest, among wellness practitioners
and employer sponsors of wellness programs alike, to “move
from wellness to well-being” with a connotation that their
efforts have been too focused on the physical. Though the
term “well-being” has eluded anything resembling a consen-
sus definition, anytime someone tries to define well-being, it
sounds retro. It’s as if they drove their 1981 DeLorean back
to 1959 to visit Halbert Dunn, the physician who coined the
term wellness.
TAHP-10
man values, not dollar values. Data can add objective informa-
tion to help practitioners make impartial decisions to improve
health and increase productivity. Also, data have given us some
good evidence that affirms holistic wellness.
How has worksite changed? How we approach employees and
people?
Bill: There is a transition that we are still in right now. For
years we separated from everyone else because we (the wellness
people) thought we were different and we thought that differ-
ence was important. We were the people who cared. We were on
the outside. Then we worked hard to get on the inside through
ROI and worksite wellness. Now we are in the third phase: total
value. We are on the inside with business, but bringing care for
the people. It is both about money and about how people value
themselves at work. People who aren’t well have trouble having
any value at work. It isn’t just about the money, it is how employ-
ees value themselves and how worksites values employees. We
will still talk about absenteeism, presenteeism, and ROI, but the
value piece is going to be huge, and that will sustain us. It puts
in one place what is very important for business: Engagement.
NWI is a really big part of that. I am excited about the change.
Anne: In the organizational and benefits area this has become
known as value-based health benefit design. I am most excited
about cross training this group to include the total concept of
wellness as we have come to know it in NWI.
In this issue of The Art of Health Promotion (TAHP) we fea-
tured the remarkable 40-year journey of the National Wellness
Institute (NWI) by hosting conversations between eight wellness
leaders. To a person, these luminaries hold a holistic view of
wellness, but they also allude to concerns that wellness has
migrated to an emphasis on physical health and a discounting
of the role of culture. I asked LuAnn Heinen, Vice President
at the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), about this
semantic shift. “I think wellness as it has long been defined was
reframed and narrowed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”
Heinen went on to explain how the ACA wellness provisions
ratified incentives for improving health risks without addressing
additional dimensions of wellness and the programs and poli-
cies that support them. Heinen stresses that improving employ-
ees’ physical health will remain a key strategy but that employee
engagement and culture change are also of keen interest to
employers.
In an article above, Brandan Hardie, Executive Director of
NWI, interviewed NWI cofounder Dr. Bill Hettler. Reflecting
 “ Strive to make an impact every day and you may have an impact
on history and on wellness. You may be impacting a life in a way
that is incomprehensible to you right now.
on her interview, Hardie told me: “Talk-
ing with Dr. Hettler, I am reminded of
the history book by a former teacher at
McDonogh School, Martin McKibben:
What If? Exploring the Paths Not Taken in
American History. The book explored
historical events and how small changes
may have altered the past, present, and
future.”
Brandan Hardie, MBA, Exploring the genesis of Hettler’s
Executive Director of attraction to a small college town as a
the National Wellness
Institute
place to exercise his passion for well-
ness, Hardie learned how a speech by the
university’s chancellor, Dr. James Albertson, may have been a
turning point for Hettler. Says Hardie about influencers she
uncovers in her chat with Hettler: “What if Dr. Albertson had
not created such a rich environment for personal and pro-
fessional growth at UWSP [University of Wisconsin–Stevens
Point]? What if Dr. Bill Hettler had not decided to practice
medicine at the university? What if Gulick’s three-dimensional
whole-person wellness triangle introduced at the YMCA had
not been such an integral part of Dr. Hettler’s coming of age?
What if Dr. Hettler and his team had never created a way to
make wellness concepts operational through an LAQ [Lifestyle
Assessment Questionnaire]? What if Bob Bowen, the organizer
of the first official conference, hadn’t been looking for work
one summer and asked Dr. Hettler for help?”
For the health promotion discipline and for the field of
worksite wellness in particular, it seems the overtures for a shift
to well-being may well mean we are at a significant “what-if”
time in the wellness movement. Reflecting on the what-ifs from
the early 1970s, Hardie says, “There were so many factors that
came together in just the right way to form a solid foundation
for what the wellness movement has become and how it has
influenced and been influenced by wellness practitioners, the
NWI, and respected journals like the American Journal of Health
Promotion. I embrace that first, history matters and we are privi-
leged to work in a time that the concept of wellness is a natural
part of a global conversation. We are in this position because of
the work and dedication of those who came before us. Second,
people matter. We need to reach people where they are physi-
cally, emotionally, and spiritually to make a difference. Third,
speaking to practitioners and wellness champions, one day
someone might be describing a ‘what-if’ moment in reference
to you.”
If this last point strikes you as a Gandhi-like call to “be the
change” you want wellness to become, you read it correctly.
Inspired by the global impact individuals and small groups have
made on wellness, Brandan goes on to say: “Strive to make an
impact every day and you may have an impact on history and on
wellness. You may be impacting a life in a way that is incompre-
hensible to you right now.”
Though some employers focus on chronic conditions and re-
turn on investment, most are pursuing a broader value proposi-
tion that is more holistic and that connects well-being to greater
TAHP-11
”
employee engagement. Higher performance has become a
common theme among stakeholders interested in moving to the
next level in employee and community engagement. We may
be reaching a juncture in wellness where this broader “value
on investment” is an overreach. Says Hardie: “The movement is
beginning to have critical mass where we no longer have to ask
‘why wellness,’ but instead ‘how?’ In the next few years I expect
additional research will help hone best practices for worksite
wellness. In addition, I expect to see additional efforts to cre-
dential and/or regulate our field to maintain high standards of
wellness practice.”
Though there is little new about the multi-dimensions related
to wellness, or well-being, what does seem new is the way in
which different groups like NWI, NBGH, and the Health En-
hancement Research Group are converging around culture and
community connectivity as a dimension that warrants deeper
investment. And when community comes into focus through
any lens, health disparities will come to the fore. According to
Hardie, “As wellness, exercise, mental health, and nutrition
practices become more ingrained in our schools and in society
at large, I hope we are in the midst of raising a generation that
better understands what it means to be well. And although the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Research are predicting a
growth in overall health care spending through 2022, I hope
this growth will include a refocus on preventative education and
services to a new population of insured individuals. With every
advancement, corporations, government, local agencies, profes-
sional associations, and individuals must remember that there
are populations who still don’t have easy access to health care,
wellness information, and the social supports that make gains in
wellness possible.”
From my vantage point, empirical evidence is a must if
a shift to well-being is to represent something more than a
recycling of traditional ideas about holistic health. Current
evidence demonstrates the connections between health hab-
its, chronic conditions, and the related costs to employers and
society. If well-being is to become a substantive term, we need
new evidence showing the connections between dimensions
such as community and social connectivity with outcomes
related to individual and organizational improvements such
as better health, engagement, and performance. What’s more,
we need more case examples of organizations and communi-
ties who have achieved meaningful change through an invest-
ment in well-being. If well-being takes hold as a new, albeit
redundant, rallying call for a holistic health movement, fresh
voices exhorting others with refreshed nomenclature may
be all it takes to disrupt the wellness movement back to the
future.
Leaders like Hardie and Heinen are predisposed to push
for continuous improvement for their organizations, and they
understand the role of metrics. As we define well-being, we may
discover that a traditional approach to wellness has yet to be
tested. Nevertheless, as I listen to these leaders ask “what if” and
enthuse about what’s next for the discipline, I also hear them
honoring the best of wellness traditions.
 Making Something Great! The 25th Annual Art and Science
of Health Promotion Conference
Paul E. Terry, PhD
W hen I ran a Word Cloud App based on this Journal’s confer-
ence participant feedback forms, words like outstanding,
amazing, and reinvigorating popped out. This year marks the
25th anniversary of The Art and Science of Health Promotion
Conference that was founded by Michael O’Donnell who has also
served as conference chairman and host for this past quarter of
a century. On the fourth cloud design I set up, I hit enter and
the words Great and People landed front and center. Of course, I
thought, Michael would be the first to say that it has been great
people who have made for such great conferences year after year.
Winston Churchill said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up
and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
This Journal’s Conference reviews routinely affirm the deep
appreciation that over 15,000 participants have had to sit and
learn from the nearly 1400 faculty members who they have
found so “passionate” and “accessible.” On the 25th anniversary
of the publication of this Journal, Dr. O’Donnell wrote an article
that detailed twenty five major developments in the field over
those years, thirteen of which were documented in this Journal
and nine that were authored by members of this Journal’s edito-
rial board.1
As one who has
been fortunate enough
to have presented at
most of the confer-
ences, I recall how
these developments
created excitement and
dialogue. New ideas are
all the more energiz-
ing when O’Donnell brings us together to learn in places like
Colorado Springs, San Diego, San Francisco, D.C., Las Vegas
and Lake Tahoe. I asked O’Donnell about other trends he has
noticed play out at these wondrous venues. “The audience has
continued to evolve.  It used to be the seasoned wellness nuts
plus a smattering of clinical people making career changes.  It
has evolved to people from so many different backgrounds
who have been tasked to develop a wellness program for their
employer, or as a product offering. We now attract people who
are very sophisticated in wellness, but come from a different
perspective, like economics, or policy, or city planning.” And,
predictably, as greater diversity of expertise enters our field, so
too have conference topics and modalities evolved. “Electronic
technology has become the predominant delivery mechanism,”
noted O’Donnell. “Tech was so new 15 years ago that we had a
separate exhibit day focusing on technology. Other topics have
emerged including culture, incentives, active living and the built
environment. Financial analysis is still popular, but people are
not desperate for it. We know how to do it so well now and the
results are widely distributed.”
My second time at the conference was in 1993 at Hilton Head,
South Carolina where I presented on “Health Incentives and
Risk Rating.” I was arguing that what is today called “outcomes
TAHP-12
based” incentives held promise but could also be construed as
discriminatory cost shifting if not designed thoughtfully. This
topic has since been on a 22 year “Hegelian Spiral” in our field,
or, at least one hopes that the dialectic is trending upward and
not merely being continuously warmed over. What’s more
meaningful to me, though, is not that I correctly anticipated a
multifarious issue. O’Donnell had invited Professor Ken War-
ner, someone I held in tremendous esteem, as his “What Have
We Learned” closing session speaker. I still clearly recall how
generously and enthusiastically Warner recognized me and the
points from my session. As someone who O’Donnell has tapped
to do this closing session the past few years, I am ever mindful of
that professional boost I received at his conference and I do my
best to pay it forward.
And, fortunately for our field, I find myself calling out the
contributions of a much more age and gender balanced faculty.
“It used to be difficult to find women speaker candidates who
had a decade or more of experience and were experienced
presenters.  Not anymore!” Declares O’Donnell. “Woman are
moving into leadership positions. Also, major universities have
multiple faculty mem-
bers who are well versed
in wellness.  It is not a
fluff area or an emerg-
ing idea.”
On this last point, I’d
suggest that the role
of the conference may
change from that of
bringing credibility to a
nascent field to that of stewardship of science and practice in an
era of unfettered media. Plato said: “Wise men speak because
they have something to say; fools because they have to say
something.” My hope is that the conference long continues to
serve as a bastion for truth telling at a time when blogger trolls
and self-published, self-appointed experts increasingly cloud
over the truth. I can think of no leader more effective than
Michael O’Donnell has been in vetting, featuring, celebrating,
and preserving, professional excellence and integrity. In his
“Reflections” article, O’Donnell wrote: “My dream in establish-
ing the American Journal of Health Promotion was to help make
a contribution to enhancing the scientific foundation of the
field by providing a publishing forum for the many disciplines
becoming involved in health promotion and to narrow the gap
between research and practice.” Isn’t it wonderful when dreams
come true?
Reference
1. O’Donnell MP. Reflections on the 25th anniversary of publishing
the American Journal of Health Promotion: People, scientific progress,
and missteps. Am J Health Promot. 2011;25:iv–xi. (Note: This article is
available at no charge through: http://www.ajhpcontents.com/doi/
pdf/10.4278/ajhp.25.4.iv.)

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Michael P. O’Donnell, PhD, MBA, MPH
ASSOCIATE EDITORS IN CHIEF
Jennifer E. Taylor, PhD
Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld, PhD
Kwame Owusu-Edusei Jr., PhD*
Kerry J. Redican, MPH, PhD, CHES
Be the first
to know.
Subscribe
Today.
6 Issues/Year
ISSN 0890-1171 (PRINT)
ISSN 2168-6602 (ONLINE)
*Kwame Owusu-Edusei, Jr. is serving in his
personal capacity. The views expressed are
his own and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention or the United States Government.
AMJ_1417_AD_subscription_2015_V2NoDisc.indd 1
www.HealthPromotionJournal.com
The Wisdom of Practice and the Rigor of Research
“The American Journal of Health Promotion provides a forum for
that rare commodity — practical and intellectual exchange between
researchers and practitioners.”
Kenneth E. Warner, PhD
Dean and Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor of Public Health
School of Public Health, University of Michigan
“The contents of the American Journal of Health Promotion are
timely, relevant, and most important, written and reviewed by the
most respected researchers in our field.”
David R. Anderson, PhD, LP
Senior Vice President & Chief Health Officer, StayWell Health Management
Available exclusively to ONLINE SUBSCRIBERS
The American Journal of Health Promotion is now publishing all articles
online, ahead of print. Articles are available as a PDF document for
download as soon as they have completed the review process. This means
you can access the very latest papers in the field of health promotion – in some cases
up to a year before they appear in print.
Subscribe Online at www.HealthPromotionJournal.com
CUSTOMER SERVICE (US only) or 785-865-9402
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES (Effective 1-1-2015 through 12-31-2015)
SUBSCRIPTION USA CANADA/ OTHER AGENCY
MEXICO COUNTRIES DISCOUNT
Individual Print & Online* $145 $154 $163 N/A
Institutional Print Only** $191 $200 $209 10%
Tier 1: Institutional Print & Online $373 $382 $391 10%
Institutional Online Only $373 $373 $373 10%
Tier 2: Institutional Print & Online $477 $486 $495 10%
Institutional Online Only $477 $477 $477 10%
Tier 3: Institutional Print & Online $581 $590 $599 10%
Institutional Online Only $581 $581 $581 10%
University w/Archive Posting Privileges*** $895 $904 $913 10%
*Individual Subscriptions must be set up in the name of a single individual and mailed to a residential address.
** Print subscriptions are one print copy per issue. For multi-site institutions wishing to have a copy sent to each location, additional subscriptions are required.
Tier 1 — Most Employers and Corporations except Health Organizations, Libraries and Schools
Tier 2 — Health Organizations including Hospitals, Clinics, Health Promotion Providers, Insurance Companies and Voluntary Health Agencies
Tier 3 — Libraries, Colleges and Universities
***University w.Archive Posting Privileges — Allows an unlimited number of faculty, students and staff to post an unlimited number of typeset
accepted manuscripts on the school’s internal archive website. Includes print and online.
12/22/14 3:44 PM