Health Initiative Senior Director, Research & Analytics

ABOUT THE HEALTH INITIATIVE:

It is well-established that 80% of a person’s health is determined by factors outside the doctor’s office — healthy food, safe housing and a livable income. Yet our healthcare system is built backwards, with more than 99% of US healthcare dollars spent on medical care alone. The amount of money going toward healthcare is huge — the US government and private health insurance companies spend $10.7B on healthcare every day.

This is projected to grow 6% annually through the next decade, despite recent safety net cuts. But what exactly do we get for all this healthcare spending? Right now, the US has some of the worst health outcomes across all high-income countries, including for preventable heart disease and obesity, which cost the system nearly $500B each year. This is inefficient and leaves people behind, especially low-income children and families.

But what if our healthcare system was built to pay for health, not just healthcare? What if it moved dollars upstream to pay for the basics people need to get and stay healthy, like safe housing and nutritious food? The result would be a win-win-win:
Children and adults would have better access to healthy food and safe housing and, as a result, have better health outcomes. When healthier patients use less care, the government saves money – and insurance companies’ revenues increase – incentivizing both to pay for these basics.

The Health Initiative (THI) is a national organization that crosses political divides, taps market forces and activates stakeholders to shift dollars toward health. By providing strategic guidance and technical assistance, we activate healthcare institutions to move dollars into the hands of patients and communities to pay for food and housing— improving health outcomes for those most at risk and reducing overall healthcare costs.

Since 2018, THI has used our playbook to spur healthcare institutions to spend nearly $1B in healthcare dollars on food, housing and other basics. For example, we supported North Carolina to use Medicaid dollars to provide patients with groceries, rental assistance and other basics, keeping them out of the hospital and saving the state a net $1,020 per person per year.

THI also advised a Fortune 25 insurance company on how to provide food and housing benefits for 22K high-risk patients (87% living on less than $20K a year) and to design an evaluation which found that those receiving higher benefits have lower healthcare costs.

THI maintains a diversified revenue base which enables staff stability, long‑term planning, and meaningful impact.

The Senior Director, Research & Analytics, is a key member of the THI Leadership Team and responsible for identifying, conducting, and overseeing analysis relating to efforts to unlock healthcare dollars to buy health. They are a highly analytical and creative thinker with demonstrated success collecting, analyzing, and using data to convey a story and compel others to act. This individual is analytically meticulous, an excellent communicator to an array of non‑academic stakeholders, knowledgeable about healthcare data and resources, and eager to build sustainable, robust data platforms.

Specifically, this role has five primary functions:

• Oversee impact monitoring
  :
  Accountable for building, implementing, and updating a data platform to quantify the amount of money and number of recipients (1) THI has shifted to drivers of health (DOH) & (2) the overall healthcare sector is spending on food, housing & other DOH. Includes vetting and overseeing contracted support to build and manage this platform.

• Develop THI’s integrated data environment
  :
  Oversee the development and refinement of THI’s proprietary integrated data environment, migrating from a Tableau interface to a relational database such as SQL, creating and executing reporting functions, and ensuring it is updated regularly. Includes securing and managing external resources.

• Produce all data/statistical deliverables
  :
  Accountable for conducting all data and statistical analyses needed to support THI’s work (internal and external requests) and providing technical…