How Socio-behavioral Determinants of Health are Changing Healthcare

New Sage Growth Partners report explores how going beyond socio-economic data to understand behavior is advancing population health

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Sage Growth Partners

Feb 27, 2018, 09:30 ET

BALTIMORE, Feb. 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sage Growth Partners (SGP), a Baltimore-based healthcare research, strategy, and marketing firm, today announced the publication of a new report, Zip Codes Alone Don't Deliver, that explores how patient behavior and engagement data can drive targeted healthcare strategies. Through interviews with industry experts, published research, and real-world patient profiles, this report explores how using socio-behavioral data can lead to deeper health insights, more effective engagement strategies, and better business performance.

While population health proponents have advanced the premise that where you live influences your health, it's clear that there are more factors that influence an individuals' health beyond their medical care or genetic makeup. Knowing an individual's zip code may reveal that they live in a food desert with limited access to healthy food – but knowing how often they eat fast food, or that they consume their news on a mobile device rather than the television, are insights that can be more readily used by healthcare entities.

Other industries have successfully implemented this kind of consumer information, sourced from vast datasets, to understand how people feel, think, and act. Until recently, the biggest challenge for healthcare providers and payers was how to obtain the detailed data and convert it to actionable insights. Today, healthcare disruptors are layering this information with geospatial data to create even more detailed and actionable user-defined populations.

"Thought leaders have promoted this 'you are your zip code' thinking, which was helpful in advancing the population health conversation. However, it is still limited in truly understanding what makes us healthy or not," said Dan D'Orazio, SGP CEO. "While it's clear that where you live does significantly impact your health, it's not a variable that a healthcare payer or provider can change. Instead, we gain a deeper understanding about how to improve a population's health when we know things like their diet and exercise habits and attitudes; their household composition; how socially connected they are, and their attitudes about physicians and pharmacists.

"In the report, we demonstrate in several examples how people who look identical from a socio-economic standpoint can be vastly different from a socio-behavioral standpoint," continued D'Orazio. "These are insights that can inform meaningful risk assessments, outreach, and care management strategies, thereby truly driving engagement and action."

About Sage Growth Partners

Sage Growth Partners accelerates commercial success for healthcare organizations through a singular focus on growth. The company helps its clients thrive amid the complexities of a rapidly changing marketplace with deep domain expertise and an integrated application of research, strategy, and marketing.

Founded in 2005, Sage Growth Partners is located in Baltimore, MD and serves clients such as Philips Healthcare, Quest Diagnostics, Launchpoint, Ingenious Med, and ArborMetrix. Visit us online at www.sage-growth.com.

SOURCE Sage Growth Partners