The Redox Podcast 37: From buzzword to buzzer-beater: How SDOH stands to take COVID head on
Feb 10, 2021
Hey everyone! We are Jenn, Rosalind, and Maddie, Redox’s inaugural interns. To briefly introduce ourselves, Jenn is a senior at Wellesley College majoring in Psychology and American Studies. Rosalind is a senior at Wellesley studying chemistry and history. Maddie is a junior at Wellesley majoring in Sociology. While coming from different academic backgrounds, we all have a shared interest in learning more about the intersections of healthcare and technology, especially how technology plays a role in measuring factors that influence an individual’s or group’s health outcomes.
Today, we are happy to introduce Manik Baht, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Healthify. Founded in 2013, Healthify utilizes a technology platform to provide a network of social services to families and individuals with end-to-end care coordination. With the structure to ensure connection and delivery of social services, Healthify can address the needs of multiple communities and start to bridge the gaps in health equity.
Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are the social, economic, political, and local conditions that affect a person or a group’s health. Key examples of SDoH are food security, quality education, housing, economic stability, and access to health care. Addressing SDoH promotes health equity and helps everyone in a community achieve a healthier life.
Due to the proliferation of COVID-19 cases nationwide, health inequities have been further pushed into the spotlight. Discussions about SDoH and how to address them are critical as we battle the pandemic and will continue to be central in our efforts to create a healthy society as we face a changed, post-COVID world.
In our conversation, we were able to talk about Manik’s approach to addressing SDOH through Healthify and navigating through addressing multiple social needs, such as food security, housing, childcare, and employment. Thank you Manik for joining us today and providing valuable insights!
“At the end of the day, if you're not solving for these needs, we're not gonna move the needle very far. So we felt this was critical to healthcare, but also critical to building stable, thriving communities.”
Manik Bhat, Founder and CEO of Healthify
Time Stamps of Key Topics
1:07 - Description of Healthify
2:38 - Problem areas in social services
6:49 - Building a network of community services
8:23 - Measuring effectiveness and cost effectiveness
11:02 - How do you define SDoH?
13:06 - Focus areas for SDoH
13:51 - taking a broad approach to SDoH
15:36 - Entering into a community
17:17 - COVID shining a light on health equity
18:55 - A growing network in the pandemic
19:55 - Other players in the SDoH space
20:52 - Next steps for Healthify
21:55 - Reforms outside of Healthify
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