Social and structural barriers to achieving health - such as food, housing insecurity, education, and more - as well as intersecting identities - such as race, gender, and sexual orientation - have a significant impact on patient outcomes. Addressing these social determinants of health is a critical challenge all stakeholders must take into account when designing, scaling, or investing in new programs. Panelists will discuss how different players in the healthcare ecosystem are responding to this challenge and integrate the social determinants of health into their operations and will consider how firms traditionally "outside" of the industry can leverage their core capabilities to have a positive impact on these factors.

Panelists

CHEMU LANGAT

VP of Quality and Regulatory Affairs, Best Buy Health

Chemu Lang’at is the Vice President of Quality & Regulatory at Best Buy Health. She is responsible for the establishment and execution of the quality management system and regulatory compliance for the health portfolio. She also leads the health equity work for Best Buy Health.

 Prior to joining Best Buy, Chemu was the Regional Head for Africa under Medtronic Labs, a social enterprise within Medtronic with the mission of expanding access to locally appropriate healthcare delivery models that integrate digital technologies and services across the care continuum. Chemu previously worked as a Principal Biomedical Engineer for Medtronic, as well as a Systems Safety and Reliability Engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

 Chemu received her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Assistive Technology from Hampshire College, a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology, and an executive MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She serves on the board of directors for Splash International, Kenya Defeat Diabetes Association and TIP Global Health, and is a strategic advisor for Coding Dojo.

DR. THEA JAMES

ED of Health Equity Accelerator and VP of Mission & Associate Chief Medical Officer, Boston Medical Center

Thea James, MD, is Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She is the Director of BMC Violence Intervention Advocacy Program and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. James has primary responsibility for coordinating and maximizing BMC’s relationships and strategic alliances with local, state, and national organizations to foster innovative and effective models of care that are essential for patients and communities to thrive. Integrating upstream interventions into BMC’s clinical care models are critical in achieving equity and health. Dr. James’ passion is domestic and global public health. Dr. James served on the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine 2009-2012 as chair of the Licensing Committee. As the Supervising Medical Officer on the Boston Disaster Medical Assistance Team under the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. James has deployed to New York City post 9/11; New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Bam, Iran after the 2003 earthquake; and Port-Au-Prince, Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Globally, she and colleagues have worked with local partners in Haiti and Africa to conduct sustainable projects. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Equal Health, an organization that supports sustainable medical and nursing education systems in Haiti. She was awarded the Boston Public Health Commission’s 2008 Mulligan Award for public service; the Suffolk County District Attorney’s 2012 Role Model Award, and the Schwartz Center 2014 Compassionate Care Award. She received The Boston Business Journal Healthcare Hero Award in 2012 and 2015. The Boston Chamber of Commerce awarded Dr. James the Pinnacle Award in 2015 and she was a 2019 Massachusetts Public Health Association Health Equity Champion. In 2020, Dr. James received the American College of Emergency Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award; a History Maker Award from The History Project; and the inaugural Thea James Social Emergency Medicine Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians. A graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. James trained in Emergency Medicine at Boston City Hospital, where she was a chief resident.

BETTY YEN

Head of Partnerships, Lyft Health

Betty joined Lyft in 2018 to build the organization's health plan strategy and currently serves as Lyft Healthcare's Head of Payer and Provider Partnerships. Betty is responsible for growth strategy, partner development, and account management, and her teams have established hundreds of patient transportation programs addressing healthcare's most critical issues, namely transportation as a social determinant of health and access to care. Prior to Lyft, Betty served as Managing Director of Market Development at Evolent Health working alongside providers and payers making the transition to value-based care.

ESTHER FARKAS

Chief Strategy Officer, Unite Us

Esther oversees corporate development and strategy, the Social Care Payments product line, as well as legal and compliance, and is a member of the Unite Us board of directors. Esther focuses on corporate growth and expansion through strategic partnerships and acquisitions that support Unite Us’ mission, ensuring that everyone has access to the care they need, right in their communities. Esther led the acquisition of Staple Health in 2019 and Carrot Health in 2021 to enhance existing in-house data analytics, a critical component of the company’s end-to-end social care solution as well as the acquisition of NowPow in 2021. She was also instrumental in the company’s financing rounds, including its latest Series C funding in March 2021, and is leading Unite Us on its path to becoming a generational company that’s transforming the care delivery system and ensuring that one day, zip code will no longer determine a person’s health.

Moderator

JULIA BERENSON

Technical Officer, Equity and Health in the Social Determinants of Health Department, World Health Organization

For over a decade, Julia Berenson has worked in health research and policy with a focus on social determinants of health and health equity. Currently, Ms. Berenson is a Technical Officer of Equity and Health in the Social Determinants of Health Department at the World Health Organization (WHO). In this role, she is leading development of a new monitoring framework for the measurement, assessment, and addressing, from a cross-sectoral perspective, of social determinants of health inequities. In addition, Ms. Berenson is managing the development of a new research agenda on social determinants of health equity. She is also building networks to support monitoring, research, and knowledge translation for social determinants of health equity, including with international organizations, foundations, academic research institutions, government agencies, nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, and other partners.

Before joining WHO, Ms. Berenson worked at Vital Strategies where she managed global health policy and research projects and writings with a focus on public health issues that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, including COVID-19, overdose prevention, and tobacco control. Prior to this, she served as a Consultant for WHO in Cambodia, supporting with implementation of a project to advance data and governance for health equity. Previously, Ms. Berenson spent a number of years working in U.S. health policy and research. She served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health and its initiative the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities, managing research and writings on multi-sector approaches to address health disparities across the U.S. Prior to this, she worked for the New York Academy of Medicine, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Center for Health Care Strategies where she developed and managed health policy and research projects aimed at addressing health, health system, and social determinants of health issues pertinent to vulnerable populations in the U.S.

In addition to her work experience, Ms. Berenson holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a MSc in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing jointly awarded by the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Most recently, she received her MPhil and is defending her dissertation for a PhD in Social Policy with a concentration in Economics at Columbia University.