The need for change, and other key takeaways from Real Chemistry’s inaugural Real: Health Equity Summit

This article was authored by Shannon McIntee, Employer Brand Manager at Real Chemistry

Every year, Real Chemistry partners with our health care clients to prepare them to participate in the annual J.P. Morgan Health Care Conference, and we attend the event to listen to the speakers and get a pulse on where the health care industry is heading. While Real Chemistry did the same this year, we also held the inaugural REAL: Health Equity Summit. Created by and facilitated by our Global Inclusion & Health Equity (GI&HE) team led by Mary Stutts, the Summit brought together a diverse group of thought leaders and experts across the health care industry and academia to discuss the role we all play in creating systemic change and putting words into action.

You can find extensive coverage of the Summit on the Real Chemistry website. However, I thought it would be interesting to hear from colleagues in Real Chemistry’s Integrated Communications about their takeaways and #RealChemstories – and see how they are putting into practice with clients what they learned from the Summit.

What they each took away was unique, yet they found one theme held true – the impact the Summit had on so many leaders in the health care industry, who called out the criticality of Real Chemistry’s work and how that is shaping their own commitment to continue working for change.

Lisa Kiker, associate account director, attended several sessions during the Summit, including one in which our client—Ted W. Love, M.D. (President & CEO, Global Blood Therapeutics)— was speaking. She found it especially valuable to hear him tell his story about what he experienced as a young medical student observing differences in care available for patients with two different diseases – cystic fibrosis, which predominantly affects white children, and sickle cell disease, which primarily affects African Americans. Throughout his career, he has seen disparities in how research is prioritized for diseases that more commonly affect people of color, and he has worked to address that. 

“He said that ‘Knowledge is power, and knowledge is something that has been used against people from disadvantaged backgrounds for many years.’ That statement really resonated with me,” said Lisa. “It highlights the importance of ensuring that our content is accessible to the audiences we hope to reach. On a practical note, we have pulled through some of the key points he made during the Summit and incorporated them into the company’s social channels and our media pitches.” 

Hannah Strohmeier, senior account manager, came away from the Summit with a better understanding of the importance of accessibility and health literacy in her work in disease awareness campaigns and patient advocacy. “The sessions served as an important reminder that, if our messaging isn’t easy to understand and our educational content isn’t relatable, we need to fix it,” said Hannah. “We need to continue to challenge our assumptions and push ourselves creatively to engage people in culturally sensitive ways and build trust. Health literacy is our responsibility, and we can use it as a tool to drive health equity.”

 With an undergraduate degree in public health, Hannah is familiar with health equity and the social determinants of health, but she found the Summit really expanded her understanding of the long-standing health inequities highlighted during the pandemic and the limited access racial and ethnic minorities have to digital health technologies. “As Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick put it in the Disinformation and Digital Determinants of Health session, ‘The people who have access to these tools are the same people who have had access all along.’ That was eye-opening to me and made me more aware of how the pandemic further exacerbated health inequities,” Hannah added.

For Ianna Brugal, account director, the information she learned during the Summit is making a real impact on her client work as well as on her overall career development. “The Summit was crucial to increasing my understanding of the health care industry and environment – trends, key topics, opportunities and areas for improvement. This will not only impact my own development but also the value I can bring to my clients,” she pointed out. Her understanding of health equity also shifted. “I realized that health equity goes beyond equity in research or clinical trials and doesn’t work in a silo. Many components of health equity are needed to be successful – from education and engagement to innovation and funding. Not only does the health care workforce need to be diverse but so do our voices, perspectives, partnerships, interactions. This needs to happen at every level, and events like the Summit provide a platform to foster that,” Ianna noted. 

Overall, Lisa, Hannah and Ianna found the REAL: Health Equity Summit to be an invigorating way to kick off the new year. “Real Chemistry is the catalyst for moving this conversation forward, which is so important at all levels and sides of the spectrum,” said Ianna. Added Hannah, “This work is not someone else’s responsibility – it’s on all of us to be accountable for building health equity into our systems and into how we work with clients, patients, communities and stakeholders. I’m proud to work at Real Chemistry, where we’ve made DEI and health equity a part of our DNA.”