World Health Day 2016

In 2012, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.5 million deaths, with more than 80% occurring in low- and middle-income countries. World Health Day is tackling this issue head on – its tagline for 2016 is 'beat diabetes' with a focus specifically on the type two variant of the disease, often associated with lifestyle choice.

At Anglo American, our health and well-being programmes encourage healthy lifestyles, emotional well-being and provide support for the management of chronic illnesses.

Through these wellness programmes, we strive to improve and maintain the health of our people and, at the same time, reduce absenteeism, which can have a significant impact on the ability of teams to execute planned tasks safely and effectively.

An education in lifestyle

Our extensive medical surveillance programmes include health screening for common lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, as well as hypertension, cholesterol and obesity.

Weight management remains a concern at most operations, but receives particular attention in Brazil and South Africa where the percentage of employees with a body mass index of over 25 ranges between 20 and 65%. Obesity can trigger a range of other chronic medical conditions, such as type two diabetes, and aggravates the incidence of musculoskeletal strains, as obese individuals may no longer be fit to execute physically demanding tasks.

In these regions and others, education campaigns focus on the importance of diet and exercise, while many operations facilitate access to professional medical support.

At our South African businesses, high levels of employee indebtedness, in particular at our Platinum business, are affecting employee well-being. To address this serious concern, Platinum has an employee financial wellness programme that is well used and is mitigating levels of indebtedness. Similar initiatives are being rolled out at other South African business units.

Other campaigns throughout parts of the businesses in 2015 focused on mental health and emotional well-being, substance abuse, smoking cessation, cardiovascular disease, work-life balance, sexual health and influenza vaccinations.

TB and HIV/AIDS: Our health focus

While World Health Day is focused on a particular theme, it also encourages a broader examination of health in society. Maintaining the health of our employees and those residing in communities local to our operations is critical for us, and a key focus of that effort is TB and HIV/AIDS. 

In South Africa, TB and voluntary counselling and testing for HIV is included in the health screening. We offer all our permanent employees subsidised health insurance. All contractors have access to our HIV and TB testing and to medical surveillance, though their levels of access to our more comprehensive wellness offering vary across the business.

Testing is the entry point to our comprehensive programme of prevention, care, support and treatment for HIV and AIDS. The annual number of new HIV infections showed a very encouraging decrease, and a record 88% of HIV-positive employees were enrolled on our HIV wellness programmes. There was also a 34% increase in uptake of anti-retroviral therapy by HIV-positive employees.

Health is a key part of the way we do business at Anglo American. Discover more about our approach to Safety and Health.