How Employers Can Address Employee Social Determinants of Health
By gathering the right data, employers can more effectively address employee social determinants of health needs and improve productivity.
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- Employers who leverage demographic data to address social determinants of health needs among their employees are not just doing their employees a favor, they are adopting a strategy that could reduce healthcare spending, hone healthcare strategies, and improve overall productivity.
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Employers may become overwhelmed when thinking about taking on larger social issues. They might collapse social determinants of health into those social issues as something that is too big for them to meaningfully influence.
But to Mike Thompson, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions (National Alliance), and Christa-Marie Singleton, chief medical officer of the Office of the Associate Director for Policy and Strategy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressing social risks is at the heart of reducing healthcare costs and supporting employees.
“The social determinant of work impacts performance and morale, which then links to poor health outcomes and this can drive up the cost of care,” Singleton said. “Over half of the country gets their insurance and their access to healthcare from their employer, so the employer really does have an outsized influence on this process.”
Employers are fully capable of making an impact on the social determinants of health that can impact their employees’ health and productivity, Thompson agreed. Still, even with that question laid to rest, identifying the best next steps is a daunting task.
The National Alliance and CDC partnered to assemble a learning collaborative for employers. The collaborative considered how employers could leverage external partnerships in order to overlay typical employer-collected data with relevant demographic information.
“What we found is employers were very comfortable extrapolating from the demographic data that mapped onto communities and using that as an early step to identify where they should look further and what they should explore further. That was very empowering,” Thompson explained.
As employers began pulling data from public health partners and finding other data resources to use internally, they were able to piece together a better picture of what social determinants of health barriers might be influencing large populations of their employees. Armed with this information, employers can then implement more effective wellness programming and other strategies to address the need.
“This sounds like people are investing to do the right thing, but I think they're investing to do the smart thing,” Thompson clarified. “They're investing to do the thing that will reinforce who they are as an organization and a company and that will ultimately pay dividends in so many different ways. Many times the people that we deal with can't see that broader picture. This will open up that broader picture. And I think that's really encouraging and exciting.”
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Lark utilizes proprietary AI technology to simplify the prevention and management of chronic illnesses. Its expanding platform provides users 24/7 access to a virtual care coach through an engaging and personalized text-like interface. Lark currently works with 2 of the 3 largest health plans.
