Elizabeth Ablah would like to see fewer donuts and more fresh fruit in your break room. She's happy that your company offers onsite yoga classes, but she doesn't consider that wellness. And tobacco users? If you're serious about trimming your healthcare costs, you'll stop hiring them.

Ablah delivers that message - and the evidence driving her advice - to community leaders across the state as part of the WorkWell Kansas program. The initiative educates employers and equips them to create a comprehensive culture of health in the workplace.

Dr. Ablah is an associate professor in the department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at KU School of Medicine-Wichita, and well known in the Wichita area as an environmental and community activist.

The target? High-risk behavior.

A comprehensive approach to workplace wellness, as Ablah quickly points out, differs from the piecemeal way most employers address health. "In order to be comprehensive, a wellness initiative has to address tobacco, healthy foods and physical activity," Ablah explains. "Those are modifiable risk factors that are responsible for more than 50 percent of premature deaths in this country."

Addressing high-risk behaviors in the workplace is critical to reducing or eliminating the "big four" chronic conditions of type 2 diabetes, some cancer, lung disease and heart disease. "The majority of our time awake is spent at work. If we're not able to be healthy at work ... we're not going to be healthy," Ablah said.

Wellness: It takes a village...

The Kansas Health Foundation and the Wichita Business Coalition on Healthcare collaborated to launch WorkWell Kansas. Over three years, the initiative will be introduced in 30 communities and 210 individual worksites. Each community designates a "champion" to recruit employers into the program and provide support and follow-up after workshops are complete.

Wellness must be part of every company's business strategy, because it's good business, Ablah asserts. For every dollar spent on wellness, employers save more than three dollars on healthcare and nearly six dollars in missed work.

During a workshop with community leaders in Moundridge, Kan., Ablah emphasized the difference between reactive healthcare and proactive wellness. "You're out walking, it's icy, and you see three cars in a row hit the same patch of ice and go off a bridge. Are you going to continue to just help those injured and watch the cars pile up... or are you going to step out and try to stop the next car from hitting the ice?"

Just the facts. And they're scary.

WorkWell Kansas, with a curriculum designed by Dr. Ablah, makes recommendations that are evidence-based. And the evidence for change is plentiful. In 2000, physical inactivity accounted for 250,000 deaths in the U.S.; half of Americans live with a chronic disease; per capita healthcare expense has increased from $350 in 1970 to a projected $12,000 by 2015-and only three percent of that is used on prevention. Though the U.S. leads the world in healthcare spending, we have a rate of infant mortality that's higher than eight other developed countries.

And then there's tobacco use. Ablah is direct about the position employers need to consider, "Tobacco users cost you two-and-a-half times more per year in healthcare than nonusers. Do you want to help them quit, or do you institute a policy that excludes them from being employed?" She reminds the Moundridge group that exercising leadership often means advancing uncomfortable change.

Environment, dogs ... and kickboxing

Though the WorkWell Kansas project is Ablah's current focus, she also leads the Wichita Initiative to Renew the Environment (WIRE), which works to improve air emission levels, water quality in the Arkansas River, and the city's recycling options.

Her academic work ranges from community-based participatory research to the built environment, worksite wellness and health impact assessments, which are in keeping with her master's and doctorate in community psychology.

She's busy. Try to keep up.

When she's not facilitating, teaching, researching or advocating for the environment, you'll likely find Ablah with Obie, her French bulldog-Boston terrier mix. Like her passion for her work, Obie ("It stands for One Big Impressive Ear") clearly occupies a central place in Elizabeth Ablah's world. Pictures of him are in plentiful supply in her office, and she started a friendly competition for cutest dog photo during a recent WorkWell Kansas refreshment break.

Her love for animals is the force behind her work with a group that provides aid and shelter to pets endangered by natural or manmade disasters. In her spare time, she's also a certified personal trainer and kickboxing instructor - her dedication to wellness is more than just talk.

But she can talk. Quickly. With much energy, enthusiasm and animation. On multiple topics... sometimes simultaneously. And sometimes with little warning that you're about to transition from discussing bulldogs to analyzing aquifer depletion.

If you're active in the Wichita community, there's a chance you'll get to work with Elizabeth Ablah. Break out the fruit, and your picture of Rover. And try to keep up.