You probably have already heard about Rodale or maybe one of Rodale´s magazines is already in your house, but you just don´t know it. Rodale´s website, RodaleOnlineHealth.com provides all the self-health information that you could require.
Who is Rodale?
Rodale is a leader in personal health and fitness information publishing. In fact, you´re probably familiar with some of the journal titles including:
as well as book titles including:
In their publications, Rodale has taken a unique approach to health and fitness promotion by making their information as accessible, fun, and refreshing. One of the best things about their information is the assurance that you are receiving specialized medical information that has been researched by top medical institutions such as the Harvard Medical School that is presented in an easy to understand format.
Rodale has now made their unique information available online to organizations. Rodale Online Health is a customizable health, lifestyle and fitness content site that can be made available to your organization´s employees.
How can Rodale help your company?
Recently, many companies have been attempting to assist employees with their worklife balance issues. Similar to some of the other websites that we´ve recently reviewed such as Lifecare.com, Workfamily.com and Lifescape.com, Rodale is attempting to provide employers with innovative tools to help make employees lives a little easier.
Rodale can set up your own corporate Online Health website by customizing it to include your business logo and setting up your own corporate site as an electronic workplace health program. In addition, Rodale can include your company´s calendar, Intranet link, and contact list to customize the look and feel of your Online Health site.
How is Rodale organized?
Online Health is organized under the following headings:
1) Today
a. This section is considered to be the "daily health home page" and includes the most recent updates including daily articles, recipes, news and health tips. There is even a weekly front-page archive so that you can review news from the last seven days.
2) Kitchen
a. Online Health provides over 900 taste-tested recipes and nutritionally complete recipes to help you with your health and fitness goals. You can sort them by type of dish, type of cuisine, and cooking method. The information also informs you about what certain dishes are good for, what nutrients are high in certain dishes, and what dishes are low in certain nutrients.
3) Health Forecast
a. This is brand new section recently added to Online Health version 2.0. Health Forecast is Rodale´s personal health risk assessment tool. Users input specific health care and lifestyle information and medical history which is then subsequently analyzed by Health Forecast. Management gets free, simple software to do aggregate or segmented population reports to help guide future health promotion priorities.
4) Emergencies and Self Care
a. One of the most useful sections on their site, the Emergencies and Self-care category tells you exactly what you need to do to for home remedies for bee stings to chest pains. It includes specific medical actions to take for over 200 common accidents/problems/ailments.
5) Symptoms and Conditions
a. Interested in finding detailed information or research articles on a particular health topic? Symptoms and Conditions contains detailed articles on serious illnesses and chronic conditions from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
6) Nine Topic Libraries
If you need to search for tips, exercises, articles, or advice by topic or section, Online Health has organized their information by nine various topic libraries with a keyword search to help find exactly what you´re looking for. The nine topic libraries are:
a. Personal Life,
b. Work Life,
c. Weight Loss,
d. Safety,
e. For Women,
f. For Men,
g. Healthcare & Healing,
h. Food & Nutrition, and
i. Exercise & Fitness
7) Tools
a. This is an area of their content that they will be expanding in the near future. Designed more as a helpful yet fun and interactive section, Tools provides users with body mass calculators, quizzes, and self-tests.
8) Help
a. FAQ´s, contact information, and tips on accessing Rodale Online Health can be found here.
Online Health version 2.0 has been released with many improved features and functionality including:
Rodale offers three different purchasing options with a scalable pricing based on the number of employees within your company. The three options include:
Rodale has attempted to make their options as flexible as possible to address your company´s interests.
All that you will need is a browser and Internet access. Online Health is available over the Internet using user names, email addresses and passwords. This type of application deployment is much more time and cost efficient than typically deployed applications where there is an additional burden and load put on your IT systems and staff.
For best performance of Online Health, Rodale recommends a monitor resolution of 800x600 or larger.
There are some limitations to accessing and viewing their new addition, Health Forecast using an AOL browser. From their site, they state:
"Health ForecastTM will not optimally operate with AOL 3.0 browsers, but works well enough to collect all data and return to the user a full risk profile report.
Health ForecastTM requires Java Script and Cookies to be enabled."
Therefore, Rodale recommends using Netscape Navigator 4.0 or MS Internet Explorer 4.0 for best viewing results and access.
Technical Support
If you´re having problems, Rodale first recommends to check with your own IT Help Desk to rule out any possible internal system problems, and then to try calling their technical support personnel:
Toll Free from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, or email us directly for assistance.
Email sent after 5 p.m. EST will be answered on the next business day.
1) Rodale has been researching and providing health-related information for almost 60 years. They have affiliations with the top medical institutes in North America. Few companies will be able to compete with this kind of specialized experience and expertise.
2) Rodale has bridged the gap between medical research and daily health practice. What good is medical research if you can´t understand and apply this knowledge to your daily life? With Rodale, not only have they condensed the most information that you need, but also they have made it easy to understand and apply to your family and work life.
3) They provide many different options for company customization at affordable rates. In fact, companies have questioned how they offer certain services for such an affordable price. Rodale states that the main reason that they can provide these services so cost effectively is that
"The use of computers completely changes the cost of producing HRAs, for the better. Computer based HRAs don''t have the paper, printing, storage, shipping, processing and postage costs that make paper HRAs so expensive. And, results are instantaneous."
"The Health ForecastTM HRA inside Online Health was developed exclusively for us by InfoTech, Inc., a world leader in HRA science and technology. "
Other Companies using Rodale´s Online Health include:
Rodale even encourages individuals to contact these companies for references.
About the company (from Rodale´s website)
Online Health, which was launched in 1997, is produced by Rodale, "The Voice" of healthy active living for over half a century. It''s the voice people listen to, as more Americans than ever before are committed to -- or seeking -- healthy active lifestyles. Balancing rewarding careers and personal lives. Blending fitness, fun, and their future.
Each month Rodale is in one in five American homes -- tens of millions of times -- as people turn to Rodale expertise for knowledge, motivation and guidance. Hundreds of millions of additional impressions are made each year through Rodale Internet sites, sponsored events, and other communications.
You can check out their site at www.RodaleOnlineHealth.com.