Center for Health Equity
Improve the health and well-being of every community.
Health equity — fair opportunities for optimal health
Health disparities impact individuals, families and communities, and result from pervasive social, economic and/or environmental disadvantages, including poverty, structural racism and discrimination.
Achieving health equity means every person has a fair and just opportunity to become as healthy as possible.
Our expertise spans issues related to:
- Populations most at risk for health disparities
- Cultural competence
- Emergency management
- Housing, food and financial security
- Transportation
- Education
- Technology access
Our tailored and targeted solutions include:
- Health equity “gap and opportunity” assessments
- Strategic planning
- Actionable analytics and data visualizations
- Stakeholder engagement and culturally relevant communication strategies
- Human-centered design
- Implementation
- Learning and diffusion
- Policy research
- Evaluation support
Health equity innovation spotlights
Supported a demonstration for older residents in HUD-assisted housing program
The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) demonstration advanced health equity by testing a model of housing and supportive services with the potential to delay nursing home care and improve health outcomes for older residents in HUD‐assisted housing.
The Lewin Group, part of Optum Serve, designed and implemented a controlled demonstration in support of this initiative.
Addressing health inequities in care to dually eligible individuals
Those dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid experience high rates of chronic illness and high costs. Many of these individuals face systemic inequities, such as discrimination and barriers to care based on race/ethnicity, disability, and English proficiency.
The Lewin Group, part of Optum Serve, makes addressing health inequities a focus of our work by helping to improve providers' abilities to deliver disability-competent, person-centered, and culturally-competent care.
Conducted health disparities analyses to support CMS State Innovations Group
With a goal of reducing health disparities and assessing the impact of social determinants of health, The Lewin Group, part of Optum Serve, analyzed whether socioeconomic characteristics of a neighborhood — measured by an Area Deprivation Index (ADI) — in addition to health status, could support identification of high cost Medicare beneficiaries in the state of Maryland.
Meet our experts
Grace Yang
Vice President
Insights
Issue brief: Response to COVID-19 disparities
Optum Serve used data and analytics to see why health disparities happen and how to address them to drive better health outcomes.
Social determinants of health
Complete the data picture.
COVID-19 Area Vulnerability Index
Prioritize resources and optimize care to fight COVID-19.
Priority Identification Vaccine Operating Tool (PIVOT)
PIVOT provides the data analytics and visualization needed to optimize planning, administration and monitoring of vaccines.
Vaccine Outreach - Implementing Community Engagement (VOICE)
VOICE addresses vaccine hesitancy in at-risk and vulnerable populations.
The Health Equity Alignment Solution (HEALS)
HEALS is a data analytics solution highlighting where and how inequities occur in a community, state or a health plan’s member population.