Wellness programs are in for heightened emphasis; and many are affordable or free for small businesses.

Worksite wellness programs, which enjoyed widespread popularity among large companies in the late 1980s, are likely to be given new emphasis under the proposed national health care reform.

For owners of small businesses who felt they couldn't afford a ride on the wellness bandwagon in the 1980s, there's good news.

By tapping into wellness experts and health care providers, small business owners can learn about numerous free and low-cost programs to promote health in the workplace.

The hardest part of setting up a wellness program is getting started, said industry sources. Wellness experts are generally not located in the Yellow Pages. They do, however, belong to professional trade groups, such as the Los Angeles County Wellness Council and the San Fernando Valley Wellness Consortium.

The Business Journal contacted several experts who offered advice on how small businesses can go about setting up a low-cost wellness program.

Julie Friedman, the full-time health promotion manager at the Los Angeles Times and a frequent lecturer on setting up low-cost wellness programs, suggested that companies should study the demographics of their work force to determine which health issues might be the most important to their employees. For instance, a company that employs a lot of women of childbearing age might opt to establish an informational program on prenatal care, while a company with a work force heavily populated by men over 40 might prefer a program on prostate cancer.

Another way in which small companies can tap into low-cost or free wellness programs is to contact their community's major hospital or voluntary health agencies, such as the American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association and the United Way.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, for instance, has a speakers' bureau drawn from its medical staff of more than 700 physicians. Companies may invite members of this speakers' bureau to address their employees free of charge on a wide variety of health-related topics.

Cedars-Sinai also provides a free informational service called the TeleCare directory, which offers tape-recorded information over the phone on more than 600 health topics. The directory can be accessed by calling (310) 855-INFO. The guide listing the tape-recorded information services provided on TeleCare is available by calling Maria Gonzalez at [phone].

Santa Monica Hospital and Medical Center likewise has a no-cost speakers' bureau, as well as a consulting service to help companies establish customized wellness programs.

As for voluntary health agencies, the American Heart Association has a free, prepared program called "Heart at Work," which offers a step-by-step guide on how business owners can teach their employees about such topics as blood pressure, cholesterol, nutrition, smoking and weight control. The March of Dimes offers to send speakers out for worksite talks about prenatal care.

Some of the more popular wellness programs are health screenings -- such as testing for blood pressure, cholesterol and body fat, said industry sources. Many health maintenance organizations, hospitals and some voluntary health agencies offer free health screenings for employees of small businesses.

Small-business owners could also get some ideas about furthering wellness in the workplace by attending Xerox Corp.'s semiannual health fair in El Segundo. At those fairs, Xerox brings in health care experts to screen for skin cancer, breast cancer and blood chemistry, said Susan Burke, the company's on-site health and fitness specialist. She said employees share in the cost of the more-complex screenings. For example, employees pay $65 for a mammography and $32 for a blood chemistry screening.

Burke said, if a small company decides to screen its employees, it is important to have a health professional available to interpret the results.

"You don't want to just hand back a computer printout that says, 'You have the health of a 90-year-old,' or 'You have high cholesterol and are a candidate for diabetes,'" she warned.

For companies that merely want to retain a professional consultant to do the work, several such firms exist to provide that service.

Wellness at Work, a health care promotion firm in Granada Hills, has been helping companies set up wellness programs since 1986, said Fern Carness, founder and owner of the firm.

She said she works with companies for a monthly retainer that can run anywhere from $400 to $10,000. The average wellness program her company operates costs $100 a year per employee, or $8 a month per employee, she said.

"Even if a company has $50 a month, they can get something," she said.

For $400 a month, she said, her company can offer a company with fewer than 100 employees a monthly newsletter and luncheon speaker, and either a quarterly workshop or an annual health fair.

She said her company offers "hundreds" of different programs from which companies can choose.