18 minute read
The Economics of Behavioural Health
The economics of behavioural health is hardly ever recognised. While this reflects in the outcomes in our life situations (be it professional or personal), we hardly ever own the responsibility of the impact we bring about it. The attitude towards life impacts decision making which impacts the outcomes of the jobs we undertake to do. After all, businesses succeed because of decisions and actions taken by individuals.
Gurrit K Sethi, Founder, Miindmymiind
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Most of us think of economics as a subject to study or as a study of national performance basis the policies and politics! We forget that how we conduct ourselves financially is the economics of our daily lives. Of course, this is affected by the larger gambit of policies of taxation, labour laws etc. But our own spending patterns at an individual level, and buying patterns at a group level are the founding basis of behavioural economics, which is today a muchresearched topic. Nevertheless, let’s explore how our own behavioural health affects our economics.
So, what is behavioural health and what is its relation to economics? Our behavioural health is reflected through our ability of reasoning, decision-making skills and how we deal with complex and stressful situations. This affects all areas of our life—personal as well as professional—given the behaviours we display and decisions we finally take. These decisions and behaviours impact the outcomes of relationships at home and at work. When we fare well in our behaviours, outcomes will be good. Generally, good work done derives good financial outcomes. Simply put this is the economics of behavioural health.
What impacts our behavioural health? Three factors: biological, emotional / psychological, and social. The first refers to our physical health.
When one is not doing well physically, it affect our psychological health. When not well, we all feel low, we are unable to perform optimally. This only gets worse when one suffers from chronic illnesses. If we are emotionally volatile or weak, it can cause stress headaches, stomach aches etc. Our physical bodies and emotional bodies reflect how we carry ourselves in our social circles. These social circles define the environment we live in, how we interact with and within this environment defines our social health. The better we are able to deal with these, the better our situation.
Let’s look at this in reverse. When do we perform optimally at the workspace? When we are in robust health, when we are motivated to complete the work. This a pointer to the fact that physical and mental well-being is a critical factor in performance. In fact, in the longer run, even when afflicted physically, a mentally sound person will deliver good performance. Even in careers where the physical application is required, such as in sports, it is the mental strength which ultimately determines the victory at the finish line – the one who can endure wins. When do we keep healthy, especially in today’s context of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle? When we are disciplined enough to stay well— driven by the mind, the seat of emotions, scientifically speaking.
Success is a sum total of many failures where the hope and trust was kept alive, motivation was fed upon, hard work persisted, smart work was solicited. One might want to do a fact check around this for any successful business or a business person.
Here, I would like to put forth a contentious issue. The persona of the person defines the professional he or she becomes. Any organisation’s output is the sum total of all the people and their individual personas at work together. No individual can perform optimally if not in a personally sound situation. The receptionist may smile but the smile will lack the warmth. The manager might speak well by way of diction but the motive may not be hidden. The CEO may pass out commands, but cannot push for sensible implementation. These broken loops is where opportunities get lost, opportunities for business, for growth (career or business).
With the staggering statistics that various surveys reveal about the stress, anxiety and depression among people, it is high time organisations recognised the need for positive interventions. Rage, suicides, stress, anxiety are a reflection of the social behaviour however also a critical indicator of the mental health that these behaviours showcase. If we want the economy to really succeed with an all-inclusive growth, these indicators need to be taken serious care of.
Despite these numbers, few individuals or organisation are taking on the initiative to do something about this. These days employee assistance programmes(EAP) is the new fad. In theory, these are the right things to do, however, in the right spirit.. As I progressed in my career, during the economic surge in the country when the IT, telecom, healthcare, insurance and a whole lot of other service industries flourished, the training and development of teams was a very big deal. This development was not limited to tactical skills, but covered the overall personality development of each employee, given that the employees carried the brand of the company on their personas. Today, unfortunately, that tradition has been lost to the speed we have had to pick up. And during any slump, this was the budget to be trimmed first, limiting things to only basic required skills. However, all robust organisations went on to thrive because they invested in the development of the most important resource – the human resource. Given today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) world, it is imperative that we take a peek inward and start investing in development of people again in a planned manner with a serious commitment to output. The output of this can be clearly measured in terms of productivity metrics. These productivity metrics increase with the investment into not just people skills, but more so with investment into personality building, mindsets, and the most important, people’s health. There are innumerable studies that have proven these. We need to now adopt them in the right manner.
As individual professionals too, we all need to understand a very basic ideology that how we appear or face up to our challenges in the professional world, is no different from how we do that on the personal front. The mind functions in pretty much a similar fashion. We need to drop the fads and address our development as well as behavioural health seriously.
High time to invest in mind training because the mind drives all!
AUTHOR BIO
Gurrit K Sethi, Founder, MIINDMYMIIND, contributes to healthcare by bringing to life new concepts which enhance accessibility, helps providers re-engineer businesses, works with Global Challenges Forum (a Swiss Foundation) on sustainable health initiatives. An avid traveller and voracious reader, these attributes provide her with incisive insights about people and systems and what drives them.
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Making Healthcare Truly Inclusive by Improving Diversity
In this article, Elliott discusses the challenges and complexity in achieving diverse representation and treatment in healthcare in APAC; Steps that healthcare institutions can take to start prioritising diversity and inclusivity in practice; How technology can both be a driver and barrier to bridging inequality gaps; How innovative outcomes are only as good as the data put into the algorithms and importance of implementing inclusivity at the design stage of healthcare practice, from research to treatment.
Elliott Parris, Co-Founder of Embrace, Elsevier Employee Resource Group
Workplace discrimination remains a fundamental problem in society, and healthcare institutions are no exception. It not only manifests itself as a barrier to healthcare access, but also impacts the quality of services — even marginalising populations from getting the required assistance.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), healthcare should be provided to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or social status.
In the past few years, awareness of the importance of equal representation has become widespread. According to a 2021 Google survey1, Asia-Pacific in particular has been slower in embracing diversity, equity and inclusivity, as compared to other regions, especially across dimensions such as mental health, LGBTQI+, and race and socioeconomic status, despite being one of the most diverse regions in the world.
To improve our experiences as patients and health outcomes for everyone, it is important to be aware of existing challenges to inclusivity and ways
1 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-apac/future-ofmarketing/management-and-culture/how-inclusion-andequity-lag-behind-diversity-in-apac/
healthcare institutions can prioritise diverse representation and cautiously consider technology to eradicate barriers to universal healthcare access.
Challenges to achieving diverse representation in healthcare research and practice
Achieving diverse representation faces hurdles in almost every healthcare institution.
While educators in learning institutions are aware of and can act as proponents of inclusive practices, often the topic of diversity is not implemented within academic curriculums. There is also a lack of confidence and readiness to discuss diversity within lectures and course work. The challenge is not a lack of awareness, but limited funding and diverse representation.
According to a paper published by Elsevier on COVID-19 research conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, appropriate levels of racial and ethnicity reporting were not factored into the results, despite general awareness of racial disparities and inequity. For example, during the pandemic, vaccine trials included less than 5 per cent of Asians on average in their samples.
In APAC countries where populations tend to be dominated by a single race or ethnicity, practicing inclusivity can prove to be rather challenging. Due to the lack of exposure to caring for certain populations, ethnic minorities in Vietnam, for example, tend to face communication barriers2 and receive non-specific and non-contextually adjusted health information.
Action for diversity in educational and workplace settings
Raising awareness on the importance of inclusivity through education is a critical step towards equipping future healthcare practitioners in Asia, with the necessary skills to recognise bias and treat patients from diverse groups equally.
Implementing the framework of inclusivity within curriculums, beyond learning about the science of healthcare, can help student doctors and nurses practice care with empathy. Another approach would be to model inclusivity into medical schools at every level; from the board, management and faculty, to the student body.
In APAC, more than 258 million people live with rare diseases, and many still receive limited funding and allocation3. Increased financing and prioritisation in the research field within APAC will help such patients receive adequate care.
Beyond equitable funding, it is also important to ensure that clinical samples are fair and representative of population demographics, which will allow research into the varying responses and risk factors for specific ethnic groups.
Recognising that many efforts to achieve diversity have fallen short due to passivity, it is necessary to set concrete benchmarks. Ideally publicly,
2 https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0687-7 3 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/how-toremodel-universal-healthcare-in-the-asia-pacific/
with aggregated data where necessary, to make progress measurable and trackable, for greater accountability.
The role of technology in bridging the gap in healthcare inclusivity
In the digital first world, technology has become closely integrated with our daily lives. Technological solutions have permeated the healthcare industry, driving significant change and impact.
While technology can support healthcare institutions by streamlining the data collection process, aiding the development of innovative treatments and improving communication across demographics, its Achilles heel remains the fact that technology is dependent on data.
Technological outcomes will only be as good as the data put into them, and depend on how the data is used. Specifically, algorithms which are derived from a majority pool of Caucasians will
Elliott Parris is the 2020 Co-Founder of Embrace, an Elsevier Employee Resource Group of approximately 200 people, focused on antiracism in research and healthcare, inclusion, diversity and equity for the lives of the racially marginalised. He is also a co-organiser with Tribe Named Athari, London's Black Lives Matter Chapter, a youth-led movement calling for Black liberation and racial justice through healing, direct action and radical education. He has a scientific research background of synthetic biology in Switzerland, following a Bachelors and Masters degree from University College London, in Genetics, Evolution & Environment and Synthetic Organic Chemistry.
AUTHOR BIO
not be as accurate when applied to patients from a racially marginalised group4 .
To make healthcare truly inclusive, tech products within the healthcare field should be truly representative. They must consider the needs of all patients and support the delivery of empathetic care based on individual patient needs.
Working with inclusive technology and intelligence platforms, or partnerships with institutions like Elsevier’s Health Research Development programme, can help advise practitioners on the adoption of good practices and global standards: from design, through its undertaking, and until the publication of study results — thus resulting in the collection of representative data.
Conclusion
Investing in diversity is critical to ensure that all patients receive the care they need. All healthcare institutions, including universities, hospitals, and research facilities, must intentionally implement inclusive frameworks within their systems.
To this end, it is important to move away from the concept that it is optional. Rather, a minimum requirement and standard should be set and made mandatory.
On an individual level, healthcare professionals can play an active role to advocate for change, be early adopters and change makers, to influence and enact change within their sphere of influence.
Ultimately, the goal is to be able to provide not only robust and comprehensive care to patient populations, but one that is tailored to their diverse needs, aided by the latest, most-inclusive and innovative solutions.
4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40273017-0578-1
Factors to consider for a successful roll-out of diversity and inclusion initiatives
Building a talent pipeline
Building an effective diversity and inclusion strategy starts with considering talent management. Building a talent pipeline begins with putting the awareness of EEDI into action. Hiring managers should learn how to recognise potential unconscious bias that they should avoid when conducting interviews or screening candidates. They need to ensure that they consider the wide range of perspectives and qualities possessed by candidates to attract a diverse and talented workforce.
Secondly, while the competition for talent gets fierce, diversity and inclusion become critical factors in attracting and retaining talent. According to Forbes Insights, a diverse workforce can attract talent in the market. When companies have good career advancement opportunities, they have a higher chance of securing a diverse workforce. Talent management strategies and development programs can be integral in continuously developing the talent pipeline and helping qualified employees advance their career journeys.
Strengthening of leadership accountability
Leaders in organisations must play a substantial role in cultivating diversity and inclusion in the workplace, as the extent to which companies respond to matters of EEDI is large, if not fully, dependent on leadership. In the Heidrick Asia Pacific Diversity and Inclusion Survey 2019, it was found that business-driven EEDI strategies led by CEOs and other C-suite leaders achieve more success. Additionally, around 70 per cent of employees in the survey believed that it would be helpful for their leaders to learn to manage diverse groups, recognise unconscious bias, and adopt more inclusive behaviour and thinking.
Inclusive leadership should be regarded as a core competency for people leaders. This begins with establishing an inclusive mindset. It is also important for leaders to model behaviours that help nurture a culture that offers the opportunity for employees to achieve their best.
Once an inclusive mindset is adopted, we can move towards putting
EEDI into practice by promoting flexible ways of working, conscious inclusion of diverse team members, and creating an environment where open communication is encouraged. Diverse employee communities for the underrepresented can be fostered throughout the organisation by leadership to promote awareness and appreciation of diversity and support people of all backgrounds.
Looking at a long-term holistic approach
For diversity and inclusion initiatives to achieve their maximum impact, they should be made integral to the mission of healthcare companies. Companies should have concrete measures to boost diversity and inclusion, such as a roadmap to implement them and a plan to monitor progress over time.
The established strategy should be part of the fabric of the work environment. Leaders should work with their teams to plan a constant stream of applications of EEDI throughout the year.
We should also measure the performance of diverse and inclusive initiatives by celebrating quick wins, highlighting successes, and managing what should be improved. Realistic goals should also be set to best determine the progress of diversity and inclusion in an organisation. They can take the form of a demographic that the company is looking to increase or perhaps boost overall employee engagement. In both cases, employees, including leaders, need to understand their roles in reaching these objectives and how they can contribute to making impactful change together.
Steps forward for building diversity and inclusion in healthcare
The adoption of diversity and inclusion in healthcare has proven crucial in driving business impact and success by securing a talent pipeline and enriching a diverse workforce that sparks innovation to bring sustainable growth to life. To achieve a favourable outcome, a holistic approach needs to be adopted while prioritising leadership accountability and ensuring the right strategy to weave diversity and inclusion into a company. When companies can successfully embed a diverse and inclusive way of working into their culture, they can expect highly engaged employees to unleash their potential and ultimately drive business growth.
Peggy Wu
Vice President AbbVie, Asia
Exploring Equality, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Driving Business Impact
Published in Issue 57 Asian Hospital & Healthcare Management
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