Socioeconomic Data Analysis Reveals Health Equity Barriers

Researchers from Utica University recently leveraged socioeconomic data to gain insights into generational poverty and other health equity barriers that impact patients’ ability to prioritize their health in an effort to improve clinical outcomes.

The research, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Data for Action (HD4A) program, used data from healthcare revenue management software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider FinThrive, Inc. to examine the demographics and family structures of households within New York communities.

These data revealed that demographic characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, and family structure, are correlated with generational poverty. The press release discussing the research defines generational poverty as “[occurring] when two or more generations living in a home or community have not advanced [in] socioeconomic status, which affects all areas of life: financial, social, physical and emotional.”

Using this definition, the researchers found that Black and Hispanic or Latino Americans, as well as single-parent households, are significantly impacted by generational poverty and barriers to healthcare. The data, which provided information at the individual and household level, helped the researchers identify which neighborhoods could benefit from enhanced healthcare interventions.

"Census and claims data can be helpful in certain instances, but the value is undermined by out-of-date, incomplete or biased perspectives of a person's life," explained John Yount, chief innovation officer at FinThrive, in the press release. "The FinThrive data shows all the activity happening outside of the healthcare setting. Layer that into a clinical workflow or apply to a housing/food distribution program for a diabetic Medicaid population, for example, and you can create opportunities to improve overall experience and reduce total medical costs. Our goal is to uncover insights that have a positive impact on US Healthcare, helping to support and drive health equity."

Additional insights, like the finding that government stimulus alone is insufficient to help those living in generational poverty achieve upward economic mobility, can also be used to help inform intervention programs, improve health outcomes, and reduce unnecessary healthcare spending.

The press release states that providers can use the findings to make recommendations to advance health equity, including stratifying the health and social services needs of patient populations using considerations for family structure, race, and ethnicity; enabling community programs to target ‘cold spots,’ or hard-to-reach areas within a given geography, that treat populations generationally; providing insights to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) on where mobile units and critical access hospitals need to be deployed; and helping public health agencies identify service needs to address health barriers.

Utica-based Upstate Family Health Center (UFHC) is one FQHC that is benefiting from these data, using them to design and implement programs, such as food drives, to close care delivery gaps created by socioeconomic factors, according to the press release.

"During the pandemic, we evolved as a community health center," said John Milligan, CEO of UFHC, in the press release. "We saw a lot of behavioral and substance abuse issues, and it became clear that we needed specialized teams to address those areas… You can do all you want on the clinical side, but until you find the root of the problem you aren't going to get anywhere."

This research is part of ongoing efforts at Utica University under the HD4A program.

Last year, the school was awarded a data access grant to support the study of the uneven socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on New York, North Carolina, Arizona, California, Virginia, and Texas communities.