How do we put anti-racism into practice in tech-forward SDOH interventions, and what does it mean for the field?

How do we put anti-racism into practice in tech-forward SDOH interventions, and what does it mean for the field? [PDF]

Speakers: Artair Rogers (Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights), Sonia Sarkar (Shift Health Accelerator, Johns Hopkins University, Common Future), Lisa Richardson (Shift Health Accelerator, Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies), Jen Lewis-Walden (Shift Health Accelerator, Build Healthy Places Network)

This session offered space to deepen actionable research and expand collaboration to center community governance and ownership, and associated impacts, for future tech-forward SDOH investments. Additionally, as social care researchers, this session focused on the role researchers can play in promoting anti-racism and equity in the SDOH sector, particularly regarding the operations and data management of SDOH interventions. The team brings unique and diverse lived experience. Artair Rogers, MS, Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, is the principal author on the forthcoming paper entitled Profiting off of BIPOC Pain: The Capital Gain of SDOH Technology Solutions at the Expense of the BIPOC Community and brings deep experience in healthcare, analytics, and support of Community Information Exchange and SDOH intervention efforts to center more equitable approaches. Lisa Richardson, PhD, is a public health practitioner and expert in community-based participatory research and community building for racial equity. Sonia Sarkar, DrPH, brings expertise in innovations at the intersection of anchor institution strategies, healthcare investments and democratizing capital. Finally, Jen Lewis-Walden, MA, MEM, brings practitioner expertise leveraging multi-sector efforts, hospital community benefit and community led network-building. The session built on their work in the field to articulate the harms in the tech-forward SDOH investment space and our national learning and action network advancing healthcare accountability for anti-racism and equity commitments. This session highlighted the critical role of researchers and evaluators to ensure that the expanding SDOH field, particularly social needs technology platforms and associated SDOH interventions, are held accountable to applying data ethics principles and helping to build the base of evidence and value case for community governance. The session also yielded actionable insights for future research and collaboration by challenging key assumptions in this growing field and invited researchers and evaluators to apply anti-racism commitments to their work, centering equitable data collection, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation as key components of the SDOH sector.

Learning Objectives

1. Map opportunities for healthcare accountability through community governance and ownership of social needs and SDOH investments
2. Co-create collaboration to deepen actionable insights and investments to center the knowledge and wisdom of communities advancing health and racial equity
3. Build interactive dialogue with field researchers and evaluators around their unique and critical role to embed anti-racist practices within the SDOH technology space, particularly in regards to SDOH intervention implementation and data management.