How pharma can use social determinant of health to address health equity
Public health is the root of pharmaceutical aims – our patients are always at the heart of what we do. With the understanding that the majority of our disease risk is social and environmental, not genetic, the social determinants of health (SDoH) have emerged as a critical dimension of patient centricity and healthcare equity. The industry’s appreciation for the role of social determinants of health at patient and community levels is constantly expanding, further developed by the overlapping discourse between pharmaceutical and public health perspectives which both centre on improving outcomes.
Effectively utilising SDoH data can inform more patient-centric practices and precise commercial strategies to reach underserved and underrepresented communities and improve real-world outcomes including diagnosis, treatment and adherence journeys.
What are the social determinants of health?
SDoH factors include a range of social and environmental considerations: relative access to care, access to medication, housing and food stability, education levels, employment and other socioeconomic factors. As our ability to reliably collect, integrate and link data grows, available SDoH data also includes lifestyle and interests which is useful in understanding your patient base and factors affecting their journey. More detailed data including access to healthy foods and physical activity levels and preferences can provide deeper insight when integrated into patient and population evaluations.
Accurately assessing the impact of these attributes on a person or population requires consideration of various components and levels of granularity. For example, low access to care could mean there are no care providers within a certain radius, that the patient has no reliable transportation or that care centres are not easily physically accessible. As discussed in the U.S. Playbook to Address Social Determinants of Health, the layers of unmet social needs exacerbate disparities in health outcomes that are already impacted by factors such as geography, race and ethnicity, age, ability, etc.i
Improved data on the SDoH can generate more meaningful insights into the unique manifestations of these barriers and patient behaviours than patient-level claims data alone. Layering SDoH data onto traditional patient metrics allows pharmaceutical companies to pinpoint populations that need the most support or require different engagement strategies to ensure they receive and benefit from innovative therapies.
Reaching the right patients through the use of SDoH data
Outreach is a critical tactic for raising awareness and educating patients about your drug. Without this, patients may not know that a meaningful treatment option exists for them. This is especially true for patients with lower access to healthcare or medicine, lower education or health literacy, less access to healthcare providers that can recommend the therapy or patients that are less likely to investigate the options themselves.
With SDoH data, biotech and pharma companies can build more detailed patient profiles to better characterise their target patient populations, including where they are and what they need. Lifestyle and interests data can be a key differentiator for cohorts that may otherwise look very similar. Insight into the nuances of patient profiles facilitates more patient-centric solutions. This allows more tailored outreach and engagement solutions, including more compelling messaging, to meet patients where they are. In fact, SDoH data can even identify where underrepresented patients are most likely to be diagnosed and how they prefer to be engaged.
Starting patients on their treatment pathway
One of the most challenging steps in a patient’s treatment pathway is the first one. Analysing SDoH and generating more detailed patient profiles allows us to better differentiate target populations and articulate the challenges they face. This holistic picture helps healthcare professionals more confidently recognise which of their patients would benefit from the therapy and appropriately prescribe for them.
Beyond identifying potential therapies for patients, physicians must weigh various factors before prescribing, including the product efficacy, safety and tolerability, costs and regimen intensity, frequency and complexity. However, treatment plan considerations also encompass a patient’s ability and readiness to solve logistic challenges, such as their ability to travel for follow-up visits or if they have caregivers to assist them, if they can follow complex instructions to effectively administer the therapy. Against those challenges, physicians can weigh the practical value of support services that address patient needs – be they financial, educational or logistical. The best medical choice and the most effective treatment is the one a patient can successfully adhere to.
Better data, better outcomes
During treatment, patients must continually overcome barriers to adhere to their regimen. For underserved, underrepresented communities, this challenge can often prove too difficult without the right services to assist them. Nonadherence leads to disease progression and poor health outcomes for patients, and it contributes to increased costs and a myriad of direct and indirect consequences that impact public health. Using patient pathway analytics can generate insights into adherence and persistency barriers, and when you know more about patients and their behaviours, you can do more for them.
Insights gleaned from SDoH data allows for quantification of access and adherence barriers to map the contours of the interrelated challenges patients face. With the right assessments and insights, pharma companies can identify the most effective support strategies to optimise impact and reduce the risk of wasting resources on ineffective or irrelevant supports. As a result, we can improve overall outcomes and help close the inequity gap by increasing access for underserved populations.
Moving the needle toward health equity
A person's ability to benefit from meaningful therapies shouldn't depend on the circumstances of their birth or sociocultural and economic environments. In other words, we must proactively address the social determinants of health to ensure that patients have access to the treatment they need and are appropriately supported to adhere to it. A combined focus on SDoH from pharmaceutical and public health perspectives is the only way to truly move the needle for better public health outcomes. Analysing SDoH data as an integrated component of broader patient data enables a wellspring of mutually beneficial outcomes, offering opportunities to enhance efficiencies throughout clinical development and commercialisation and optimise brand strategy while delivering better solutions and services to patients to achieve better outcomes.
Connect with us to learn more about your patients and how SDoH data can benefit your patients and your market strategy.
i U.S. Playbook to Address Social Determinants of Health. November 2023