ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A unique and major study that profiles external EAP vendors will be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health (JWBH), Volume 28, Number 4, November/December 2013. The study was underwritten by one of the first grants from the Employee Assistance Research Foundation (EARF) in 2011.

“NBC Industry Profile of External EAP Vendors”

In this study, the grant recipient, the National Behavioral Consortium (NBC), sought to help employee assistance professionals and purchasers better understand the current state of the field. The resulting study, “NBC Industry Profile of External EAP Vendors,” provides empirically-derived data from a survey sample of 82 external EAP vendors representing a customer base of 29,000 client organizations and over 146 million lives. NBC’s Executive Director, Stanford Granberry, PhD, served as Principal Investigator, along with co-authors Mark Attridge, PhD, Terry Cahill, LCSW, CSADC and Patricia Herlihy, PhD, RN.

“Until now there has been no reliable or publicly available surveillance data regarding the practices, metrics, and characteristics that define external EAP vendors,” says Carl Tisone, Founder and President of the Foundation. “For the first time, EAP vendors, purchasers, researchers, and consultants will have comparative information on a wide range of common metrics and descriptive characteristics available to them.” The study covers areas such as clinical activity, utilization, user profiles, follow-up surveys, quality indicators, business practices, business development, and the future direction of the field.

According to JWBH Editor-in-Chief R. Paul Maiden, “This is one of the most significant and useful studies ever to be released in the EAP field. Vendors can compare their performance against a larger cohort and purchasers can use the study’s findings to guide vendor selection processes and program design.”

A slide show that summarizes the NBC findings is free and publicly available at NBC’s website. Granberry also notes the study identified three areas that have profound implications for the future direction of the EAP field:

The JWBH is an essential guide to best practice and research issues faced by EAP professionals who deal with work-related and personal issues including workplace and family wellness, employee benefits, and organizational development.

The EARF, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation, is the only organization dedicated to promoting and promulgating rigorous research in the Employee Assistance field. It seeks to influence the power of EAPs to transform individual lives and maximize employees’ contributions to the success of work organizations by funding and disseminating research of the highest scientific quality.