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Accelerating Health Equity: Challenges and Opportunities Summary

Core Content

The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science hosted a life sciences industry roundtable on April 18, 2024, to explore the challenges and opportunities in advancing health equity. The discussion focused on three main questions: identifying past successes, measuring the impact and ROI of health equity investments, and addressing the internal and external challenges to these initiatives. The roundtable aimed to stimulate dialogue and accelerate progress toward equitable healthcare access and outcomes.

Main Viewpoints

Successes in Health Equity

• Inflection Points: The pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in 2020 were pivotal in bringing attention to health disparities. These events prompted many organizations to commit to health equity and invest in programs and dedicated DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) functions.
• Dedicated DEI Functions: Establishing full-time DEI leadership roles and teams has been a critical step in embedding health equity into company practices.
• Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): ERGs have been instrumental in driving change by acting as conduits to understand the needs of marginalized communities and informing company strategies.
• Key Disease Areas: Companies are increasingly focusing on diseases that disproportionately affect marginalized populations, such as obesity, diabetes, and sickle cell disease.
• Therapeutic Continuum: Therapies are part of a broader continuum of care, including support for diet, exercise, and mental health. This approach emphasizes integrated, supportive services.
• Capacity Building and Collaboration: There is a strong emphasis on building capacity within underserved communities and forming global partnerships to improve health outcomes.

Measuring Impact and ROI

• Clear Definitions: Measuring health equity requires clear definitions of ill-served groups and meaningful metrics.
• Downstream Impact: There is a need to capture the long-term impact of initiatives, such as how training healthcare professionals can lead to improved patient outcomes.
• Brand Performance Metrics: Companies should align brand performance with epidemiological data to better understand how their products affect health outcomes in specific populations.
• Industry Standards: Creating standardized metrics and KPIs for health equity performance could help in benchmarking and improving transparency without compromising commercial confidentiality.
• Partnership Impact: Building new partnerships with community-focused organizations can have a significant impact, and measuring this requires looking beyond just the number of patients reached to include infrastructure and capacity development.

Challenges in Advancing Health Equity

• Internal Challenges: There is a need for greater internal understanding of the "why" behind health equity investments. Some leaders hesitate to allocate resources due to a zero-sum mindset, viewing health equity as a trade-off against business goals.
• External Challenges: The growing backlash against DEI and ESG initiatives in universities, governments, and corporations poses a challenge to the momentum of health equity efforts.
• Data and Evidence: There is a call for more research to generate evidence on health equity impact, including both quantitative and qualitative data, to better inform internal and external stakeholders.
• Global Perspective: Companies must adopt a truly global strategy, not just focusing on low- and middle-income countries but also the U.S., to accelerate health equity.

Key Information

• Participants: The roundtable included leaders from major pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, Genentech, Novartis, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and UCB, as well as representatives from Johnson & Johnson and Regeneron.
• Moderators: Murray Aitken and Eliza Silvester from the IQVIA Institute facilitated the discussion.
• Research Agenda: The IQVIA Institute focuses on five key areas: improving decision-making through data analytics, enhancing clinical development productivity, optimizing health systems performance, understanding the future role of biopharmaceuticals, and researching the impact of technology on healthcare.
• Guiding Principles: The Institute emphasizes fact-based scientific evidence, rigorous data analysis, collaboration across stakeholders, and the responsible use of non-identified patient data to protect individual privacy.

Path Forward

• Embed Health Equity in Strategy: Health equity should be a core business priority, not an afterthought, and integrated into all aspects of company operations.
• Use Data to Drive Change: Data and insights are crucial for demonstrating the impact of health equity initiatives and aligning internal and external stakeholders.
• Global Health Equity Strategy: Companies must adopt a global perspective, prioritizing efforts in both low- and middle-income countries and the U.S.
• Collaboration and Sharing: There is a need for more collaboration and sharing of research methodologies and insights to avoid duplication and improve efficiency.

Conclusion

The roundtable highlighted the importance of health equity as a strategic priority for the life sciences industry. While progress has been made, challenges remain in measuring impact, securing internal buy-in, and addressing external skepticism. Continued dialogue and research are essential to drive meaningful, sustainable change in healthcare access and outcomes for all populations.