Speaker 1: Welcome to Force Multiplier, a new podcast about leveling up
Speaker 1: the impact we can have in the world through our relationships.
Speaker 1: I'm barretton Day Thurston and in collaboration with I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Salesforce dot Org, I sit with leaders from
Speaker 1: across the public, private, and nonprofit world who are forging
Speaker 1: partnerships to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing us today.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Force Multiplier. What's up? How you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm barretton Day, I'm your host. Now today's episode, we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about health equity, which are two
Speaker 1: words that you probably understanding isolation, but together there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different interpretations of that. So I think health
Speaker 1: equity means that everybody's got a fair opportunity, adjust opportunity
Speaker 1: to live their healthiest lives. It's not just about access
Speaker 1: to medicine or quality doctors. It's the opportunity to live
Speaker 1: a full and healthy life. Now, this is something that
Speaker 1: applies globally as well as locally and in one acute
Speaker 1: area right now, it's very present as an issue. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to immunization, vaccination. Yeah, we're gonna talk about the Rhona.
Speaker 1: This is a COVID centric episode. Because when COVID showed
Speaker 1: up here in the US and in many places around
Speaker 1: the world, a lot of us got hit with this
Speaker 1: message of unity, like this pandemic is going to bring
Speaker 1: everybody together, is gonna flatten some of the distinctions of
Speaker 1: economics and race and culture in the US and around
Speaker 1: the world. And in some ways it did. We all,
Speaker 1: for the most part, upgraded our Zoom accounts right. That
Speaker 1: brought us together. We got brought together on a platform
Speaker 1: like Zoom. But in other ways, COVID has been not
Speaker 1: so much a leveler as a revealer. It's been a
Speaker 1: kind of truth serum, showing us the truth of the
Speaker 1: health and equities we have for too long lived with.
Speaker 1: Because some people were overexposed to this virus and continue
Speaker 1: to be so because of the occupations they hold or
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods they live in, and some of that aligns
Speaker 1: with their class and their race and their ethnicity. Other
Speaker 1: people have been bearing a mental weight of this pandemic
Speaker 1: in an extraordinary way. And then there are those who've
Speaker 1: been hit by that financial impact of the pandemic, again
Speaker 1: a burden unequally distributed. This matters because we're not gonna
Speaker 1: be healthy until we're all healthy. That's kind of how
Speaker 1: infectious diseases work. And the longer we have large numbers
Speaker 1: of people without vaccination, the more their bodies can serve
Speaker 1: as incubators to the next variant, which might undermine our
Speaker 1: defenses and threaten us in new and more horrible ways
Speaker 1: than COVID has already proven an ability to do. So
Speaker 1: we've all got an interest in all of us being
Speaker 1: healthy and COVID showing us what it means when we
Speaker 1: succeed and when we fail. Now in this episode, we're
Speaker 1: gonna hear from two amazing people who are creating good
Speaker 1: news out of this Maelstrom, because I know a lot
Speaker 1: of the COVID news. It's hard. It's hard. You've got
Speaker 1: political disagreements about who should get vaccinated, is it even real.
Speaker 1: You've got economic disparity. You've got the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the world not even able to argue about whether they
Speaker 1: want to take a vaccine or not because they don't
Speaker 1: have access to it. So our first guest, she's working
Speaker 1: on that one. Aurelia Guyen is the Managing Director at
Speaker 1: the Office of the Kovac Facility at the seventy four
Speaker 1: World Health Assembly, quite a title I acknowledge. I talked
Speaker 1: to her about her role in leading the coordination for
Speaker 1: curement and delivery of COVID nineteen vaccines to the vast
Speaker 1: majority of the global population in a multilateral, global, cross
Speaker 1: sector partnership kind of way. I don't envy the job
Speaker 1: she has, but I am very impressed that she signed
Speaker 1: up to do this. After that, we're going to hear
Speaker 1: from Dr Dominic Mac. He's the director of more House
Speaker 1: School of Medicines, National Center for Primary Care and leads
Speaker 1: across sector partnership gathering critical resources and data on COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: using that to connect families to culturally and linguistically appropriate
Speaker 1: information and services. I hope you enjoy it. Global health
Speaker 1: equity is about how we bring forward a level of
Speaker 1: access to healthcare that everyone can depend on. It's not
Speaker 1: about just coping with COVID nineteen. So it's only through
Speaker 1: really strong healthcare systems in all parts of the world
Speaker 1: that we as a human society will be better protected.
Speaker 1: Aurelia Guyan is the managing director of the Kovacs Facility.
Speaker 1: She's dedicated her life's work to enabling equitable access to
Speaker 1: medicines and vaccines for some of the world's poorest and
Speaker 1: underserved communities. So can you share with listeners how did
Speaker 1: this organization come to be and what specific problems is
Speaker 1: it trying to solve. So GAVY is a vaccine alliance.
Speaker 1: It helps to vaccinate about half of the children in
Speaker 1: the world against infectious diseases that can be deadly or
Speaker 1: very debilitating. It was founded in two thousand and its
Speaker 1: mission is to save lives, to reduce poverty, and to
Speaker 1: protect the world against the threat of epidemics and other diseases.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand, GAVY has vaccinated more than eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty million children in the world's forest countries. And
Speaker 1: what you get by vaccinating that many children is that
Speaker 1: you're saving fourteen million deaths from happening. Gavy's focus seems
Speaker 1: to be so much on equity right, making sure everyone,
Speaker 1: as much as is possible, has access to vaccines. Why
Speaker 1: is that so important. It's part of what I would
Speaker 1: think is a fundamental human right in terms of having
Speaker 1: access to healthcare as needed. So it's a question of
Speaker 1: equity that regardless of where you are born, you will
Speaker 1: have access to vaccination. There's also the economic argument. Diseases
Speaker 1: circulate very very rapidly, and so having a small portion
Speaker 1: of population protected or even a country doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we can re engage in trade, in travel and the
Speaker 1: viruses keep circulating. And then lastly, perhaps from an evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 1: as we've seen with the emergence of variance, as long
Speaker 1: as viruses circulate, they continue to evolve, and so again
Speaker 1: making sure that everyone is protected regardless of where they
Speaker 1: live is really important in terms of being able to
Speaker 1: have ultimately a lasting response, whether you live in a
Speaker 1: rich country or in a poor country. Is the lack
Speaker 1: of equal access to vaccines due to the high cost
Speaker 1: of vaccines, that due to production challenges that due to
Speaker 1: intellectual property laws. What's the hold up? Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: a longstanding problem and it's definitely been amplified by COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: At the basis, there isn't an off vaccine manufacturers in
Speaker 1: the world, or they're very concentrated in some of the
Speaker 1: richer countries. So this is a problem that my organization, Gaby,
Speaker 1: we've been working to remedy for some time. When the
Speaker 1: organization started, I think it was buying vaccines from five manufacturers,
Speaker 1: most of which were in rich countries. Two decades later,
Speaker 1: we buy from seventeen suppliers, more than half of them
Speaker 1: in Africa and Asia, in Latin America. And so the
Speaker 1: work that I do and that I've been doing even
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, we call it market shaping. Essentially, by
Speaker 1: creating a sustainable and a predictable market, you encourage manufacturers
Speaker 1: to come in and it helps create the right sort
Speaker 1: of competition in terms of getting the best vaccines, in
Speaker 1: terms of getting more affordable vaccines, and also getting the
Speaker 1: volumes that we need to vaccinate very very broadly. And
Speaker 1: so as the managing director of the COVAC Facility, I've
Speaker 1: been pooling all of the demand from the country so
Speaker 1: a d countries and then contracting for two billion doses
Speaker 1: for this year and making sure that we have that
Speaker 1: supplied coming online. On the surface, vaccine hoarding makes some sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, we in the United States had this policy,
Speaker 1: which is we're gonna distribute to ourselves first and then
Speaker 1: whatever is left over we'll give to the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. We're not the only nation to have approached
Speaker 1: it this way. But how do you define vaccine hoarding
Speaker 1: and how do you convince a nation's leaders to choose
Speaker 1: a different path, one that might seem a bit more
Speaker 1: selfless and not in their own self interest. Essentially, the
Speaker 1: way that I read it is that it's an action
Speaker 1: a government will take to use its wealth, or to
Speaker 1: use its position of power, to procure more vaccines than
Speaker 1: they really need. And I think there are lots of
Speaker 1: reasons why this could happen. Governments need to be answerable
Speaker 1: to a citizens. Also, when this crisis happened, we didn't
Speaker 1: know which vaccines would work, in which vaccines would not,
Speaker 1: and so um, there were many contracts for many different vaccines.
Speaker 1: But that's not to say that there haven't been I
Speaker 1: think deliberate cases of vaccine hoarding that I think we're
Speaker 1: motivated more from a sort of political or sort of
Speaker 1: financial type of agenda. A lot of the early supply
Speaker 1: that we were counting on was from India for international use,
Speaker 1: and of course, with the very devastating Second Wave in India,
Speaker 1: those vaccines were used domestically and weren't available. And so
Speaker 1: we have a diverse manufacturer based so that if there
Speaker 1: are instances, their impact is as limited as possible. And
Speaker 1: then as countries get took place like in the United States,
Speaker 1: where vaccine coverage is reaching a high level enough then
Speaker 1: being able to really be able to access the excess
Speaker 1: supply for international rollouts through vaccine donations, I think is criticals.
Speaker 1: So it's about really being able to move into a
Speaker 1: different space from a domestically focused response to an international
Speaker 1: focused response. These nationalistic leaders, do they understand that a
Speaker 1: more vaccinated world is safer for everyone in that world.
Speaker 1: I think it's been a slow realization as the pandemic
Speaker 1: has evolved. I think it's been a bit of a
Speaker 1: wake up call in terms of really understanding that this
Speaker 1: very often used phrase of no one is safe until
Speaker 1: everyone is safe. What it means in practice, which is
Speaker 1: vaccination within one's borders is not going to be enough
Speaker 1: to protect one's populations. We've dabbled around it, but we're
Speaker 1: going to get right to it now. Kovacs a term
Speaker 1: I hear on global radio broadcasts and my news feeds,
Speaker 1: but many of us don't fully understand what is this
Speaker 1: Kovacs collaboration, who's involved, and what is Gavvy's role in it.
Speaker 1: So it was a partnership of four organizations, so my
Speaker 1: own GAVY, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness,
Speaker 1: Innovations or SEPPI, the World Health Organization and Unit SEF.
Speaker 1: And basically what these four organizations did is they brought
Speaker 1: together the experience in development, procurement and rollout of vaccines,
Speaker 1: really focused on COVID and so within KOVACS we brought
Speaker 1: together a hundred and ninety three governments. So that's about
Speaker 1: the global population into a multilateral global effort. And I
Speaker 1: think it's the largest efforts since the Paris Climate Agreement.
Speaker 1: In terms of the numbers of countries that came together,
Speaker 1: this collaboration sounds a bit miraculous, from the number of
Speaker 1: countries to the amount of dollars to the number of
Speaker 1: doses that are on your road map. What is everyone's
Speaker 1: role within KOVACS, Like what does w h O doing
Speaker 1: That's different from what gavvy is doing, different from SEPPI
Speaker 1: and UNSF. So if you think about sort of the
Speaker 1: journey a vaccine needs take, each of the organization has
Speaker 1: a little bit of a piece of that journey. So
Speaker 1: SEPI has very much been focusing on the research and
Speaker 1: development side, making sure they were getting the best science
Speaker 1: in the fastest time. GAVY has really been looking at
Speaker 1: the financing the procurement of the vaccine contracts with the manufacturers,
Speaker 1: and then thinking about how to deploy in countries. The
Speaker 1: World Health Organization has all of the normative functions if
Speaker 1: you like, you know, is the vaccine safe and effective?
Speaker 1: Are we going to need boosters? What do we think
Speaker 1: about variant vaccines? And then newnes SEF is very much
Speaker 1: doing the rollout the shipment, making sure that everything is
Speaker 1: in place so that ultimately the vaccines can get to
Speaker 1: the countries and then get through to the vaccination centers.
Speaker 1: So it's that little journey the organizations coordinate together to
Speaker 1: bring a vaccine from a lab to arm with so
Speaker 1: many moving parts, with such high expectations and requirements around this,
Speaker 1: what's the hardest part of maintaining this collaboration. I think
Speaker 1: that the hardest part of maintaining collaboration is that things
Speaker 1: are moving so fast. We're still understanding a lot about
Speaker 1: the disease, about how efficacious the vaccines are. We're trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that we can do things as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. Usually they would happen over ten years. Here
Speaker 1: we're asking people to do things in ten days, and
Speaker 1: that really involves a huge amount of communication, and I
Speaker 1: think it really implies making a lot of decisions with
Speaker 1: imperfect information at times, and so I think having a
Speaker 1: real premium on communicating as much as possible the best
Speaker 1: information that we have and being able to understand whose
Speaker 1: best place to make the decision and whose best place
Speaker 1: to act on it. That's the number one challenge. I've
Speaker 1: known people who've worked in international development, and there's been
Speaker 1: a criticism of a top down sort of imposition of
Speaker 1: a solution on a local community. How does Kovacs with
Speaker 1: Gavvy work to involve local communities in decisions about something
Speaker 1: as intimate and urgent as this COVID nineteen vaccine rollout.
Speaker 1: For me, vaccination is really only going to be successful
Speaker 1: if it's about empowerment. That's the individual, it's the family,
Speaker 1: it's the community. And then beyond that, of course you
Speaker 1: know the health system, the government. But really at the
Speaker 1: heart of it is making sure that there is very
Speaker 1: very strong community involvement, from the healthcare workers, from the
Speaker 1: volunteers who go into communities and do the outrage. It's
Speaker 1: interesting to think that outside of the context of COVID,
Speaker 1: in developing countries, usually there is a strong acceptance of
Speaker 1: vaccination because people are familiar with very deadly diseases and
Speaker 1: understand the role that vaccines have. And we see people
Speaker 1: walk very very long distances, wait for hours to make
Speaker 1: sure that their children are protected. And so making sure
Speaker 1: that people understand the benefits the risks of vaccination in
Speaker 1: a way that's really meaningful to them. That's driven from
Speaker 1: within in terms of the decision making on the ground.
Speaker 1: What role does a local partner play in the decision
Speaker 1: about how some of this global collaboration lands in their community.
Speaker 1: So in Gavy, we have a board that also brings
Speaker 1: in all of the voices of the different actors, be
Speaker 1: it the donors, the technical partners, the implementing countries, but
Speaker 1: also the civil society organizations. And so for any of
Speaker 1: the strategic discussions that take place or any of the
Speaker 1: big financing investments, those are brought together where everyone has
Speaker 1: a voice at the table. Every one is able to
Speaker 1: deliberate and give an opinion, so that they very much
Speaker 1: can see themselves reflected in the decision making, not just
Speaker 1: being sort of a passive recipient of funding that's being
Speaker 1: asked to do things. That's good. I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1: In all of the levers and connections and links in
Speaker 1: the collaboration of this size. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the force multiplier in making it effective? I think the
Speaker 1: force multiplier is around how each of the organizations are
Speaker 1: able to bring what they do best aimed towards a
Speaker 1: single objective, around getting vaccinations out and around ultimately saving lives.
Speaker 1: And so it's about using the private sector for the
Speaker 1: expertise they bring, the vaccine manufacturers for the R and
Speaker 1: D they do, the technical partners for all of the
Speaker 1: knowledge they have, the countries who want to save the
Speaker 1: lives of their citizens, and really bringing them together in
Speaker 1: a way that's quite the opposite of the lowest common denominator,
Speaker 1: but actually being able to build more than each individual
Speaker 1: partner would be able to do, and bringing it all
Speaker 1: together in one vision. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you a bit about your
Speaker 1: your personal experience in all of this. As far as
Speaker 1: I've discovered, you studied as an accountant with a focus
Speaker 1: on health policy, planning and financing. Did you always know
Speaker 1: you wanted to work in the area of health and
Speaker 1: health care? I mean, I've dedicated my whole career pretty
Speaker 1: much to enabling equitable access to medicines and vaccines. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit my north star, but I would say
Speaker 1: I never expected to be in a position like this.
Speaker 1: But even going back to my days at university, I
Speaker 1: was really fascinated by how science through drug discovery can
Speaker 1: really make a huge impact to people's lives, and particularly
Speaker 1: in developed in countries. So what I did is, over time,
Speaker 1: I brought together my technical skills and finance. I brought
Speaker 1: my fascination for the impact of medicines and the vaccines,
Speaker 1: and then my passion around the health inequities in developing countries,
Speaker 1: all of those together. So it is an honor, I think,
Speaker 1: to be able to do the work that I do
Speaker 1: today and I think hopefully we'll make a difference to
Speaker 1: this pandemic. You describe this as your north star, and
Speaker 1: having such an interest in the health of developing nations,
Speaker 1: where does that come from? And I think for me,
Speaker 1: I SIT's a little bit with a foot in two worlds,
Speaker 1: having sort of a French and a Vietnamese heritage in
Speaker 1: terms of developed world and developing world, and maybe being
Speaker 1: able to sort of see the contrasts in the levels
Speaker 1: of healthcare that people have access to the impact that
Speaker 1: it has on their lives, So I think maybe it
Speaker 1: was very much through personal journey that I got more
Speaker 1: and more interested and wanted to see how I could
Speaker 1: reconcile a little bit the two worlds that I come from.
Speaker 1: It seems like you have one of the most pressure
Speaker 1: filled jobs I could imagine on the planet right now,
Speaker 1: helping find ways to equitably distribute a much needed vaccine
Speaker 1: to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,
Speaker 1: as safely as possible. Do you have doubts or fears
Speaker 1: about your role in this at any time? I think
Speaker 1: the way that I approached it is really focusing on
Speaker 1: doing everything I could do to ensure that Kovac succeeded.
Speaker 1: And for me, that's because Kovac is the only global
Speaker 1: actor in this whole crisis that was going to look
Speaker 1: at COVID nineteen vaccine access for everyone. And there is
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure because it's drawn a lot of attention,
Speaker 1: and that comes with the negative, the detractors, the naysayers,
Speaker 1: And I don't think I would say that we've got
Speaker 1: everything perfect by any stretch of imagination. I mean, we
Speaker 1: are building a ship while sailing it, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But we really have to I think stay focused on
Speaker 1: the fact that at the moment, no one else is
Speaker 1: looking at this global crisis in a global manner. Without Kovac,
Speaker 1: the world would be in a worse off position. But
Speaker 1: that's not to say I'm not feeling out of my
Speaker 1: depth several times a day. Possibly I have a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine who likes to remind me. Shehes and
Speaker 1: says that, you know, with the pandemic, the world is
Speaker 1: out of its depth, So perhaps I'm not so different
Speaker 1: to the rest of the I like that, but ultimately
Speaker 1: focusing on what do we need to do to end
Speaker 1: the acute phase of this pandemic, and just doing it
Speaker 1: one step at a time. It's one manufacturer deal, it's
Speaker 1: one vaccine delivery, it's one vaccine injection at a time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one shot at a time. I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: that there is a leader or future leader listening to
Speaker 1: you right now who's going to end up in a
Speaker 1: position of multilateral collaboration on an epic scale in their
Speaker 1: own life, in their own future. Given what you've been through,
Speaker 1: given what you're in the middle of right now, what
Speaker 1: advice would you offer this person. I would say, find
Speaker 1: your north star and don't worry too much about the labels,
Speaker 1: whether you're working in the private sector, in the public sector,
Speaker 1: in the government, whether you're working as a technical this
Speaker 1: or a managerial that, find the building blocks that you
Speaker 1: need to chart that road and keep pushing for it
Speaker 1: and surround yourself. Will thank you, Aurelia for this wonderful conversation.
Speaker 1: Keep pursuing your north star. Thanks. You're listening to a
Speaker 1: podcast called Force Multiplier, Action meets Impact. Now you've probably
Speaker 1: grown to expect ads inside your podcast, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: do something a little bit different to walk the walk.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and hear from one
Speaker 1: of the organizations featured in this episode. Be right back.
Speaker 1: One year ago, Gavy launched the Kovacs Advanced Market Commitment,
Speaker 1: an innovative solution for an unprecedented pandemic designed to ensure
Speaker 1: no country misses out on vaccines that offer us all
Speaker 1: a route back to normality. Twelve months later, KOVACS has
Speaker 1: a long list of accomplishments. Vaccines have been approved for use,
Speaker 1: countries are ready to receive them, a scheme to help
Speaker 1: people access compensation is in place, and one point three
Speaker 1: billion doses are contracted to KOVACS. But we now face
Speaker 1: a fork in the road. Down one road lies a
Speaker 1: two tier world in which the pandemic continues to rage,
Speaker 1: economies continue to be hit, the vulnerable are thrown into
Speaker 1: extreme poverty, and variants continue to evolve. The Kovacs a
Speaker 1: MC can help put us on another path in which
Speaker 1: we defeat this virus together united. But to do this,
Speaker 1: the a m C needs urgent resources. It needs long
Speaker 1: term financing to help the am C evolved as the
Speaker 1: pandemic evolves. It needs argent doses donated from countries with
Speaker 1: vaccines to spare. And it needs the connective will of governments, financiers,
Speaker 1: civil society, and vaccine manufacturers to leave no one the time.
Speaker 1: Kovacs is committed to deliver. Hey you, it's Baritone Day,
Speaker 1: host of the podcast you're listening to right now. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, my mom told me to come
Speaker 1: up with a system we could live under after democracy
Speaker 1: had failed. Yeah, my mom was intense. I haven't finished
Speaker 1: that assignment, but I did make a podcast. It's called
Speaker 1: how does Citizen? With Baritone Day. It reimagines citizen as
Speaker 1: a verb and reminds us how to wield our collective power.
Speaker 1: Find seasons one and two and whatever podcasts app using
Speaker 1: right Now and Season three All about Tech drops in October.
Speaker 1: Learn more at how does citizen dot com? So, as
Speaker 1: we've heard, health equity is undoubtedly a global issue, but
Speaker 1: none of us is like a global person. We live somewhere,
Speaker 1: You live, some fair So what does health equity mean
Speaker 1: for you, for your neighborhood, for your community? Have you
Speaker 1: noticed among your own family people who are struggling not
Speaker 1: because of choices that they made, but maybe because of
Speaker 1: choices they're unable to make. Have you noticed in your
Speaker 1: daily life and the workers and colleagues and other people
Speaker 1: you interact with, who's living a healthier life and who
Speaker 1: is and who has access and who doesn't. We had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to speak with Dr Dominic Mac, director of
Speaker 1: the more House School of Medicines, National Center for Primary
Speaker 1: Care and the National COVID nineteen Resiliency Network. Check it out.
Speaker 1: The National Center for Primary Care is a research training
Speaker 1: center that provides resources to strengthen the primary care system
Speaker 1: so we not only identify inequities in health when it
Speaker 1: comes to primary care and primary care related health concerns,
Speaker 1: but also to produce solutions and community oriented primary care
Speaker 1: is significant to the n C PC or the National
Speaker 1: Center for Primary Care model, because you know, terminologies come
Speaker 1: and go, but it's a concept that's very important. If
Speaker 1: you go into a community and you're trying to improve
Speaker 1: the health of that community, and the street lights are
Speaker 1: not on and as dilapidated cars on the street, the
Speaker 1: people don't have housing, and they don't have food, maybe
Speaker 1: you need to give them a meal first, turn those
Speaker 1: lights back on before you can talk to them about
Speaker 1: improving the health. You know, someone has three jobs, they
Speaker 1: may not have time to come visit the physician right
Speaker 1: or get a vaccine. Those social determinants that are so important.
Speaker 1: We know your lifestyle or where you live a number
Speaker 1: of factors the environment really impact your health. Healthcare is
Speaker 1: twenty percent unless of your health. So starting to look
Speaker 1: at the communities, you have to look at those social
Speaker 1: determinants that affect them. So how can we begin to
Speaker 1: do that. Data is important and taking a scientific approach.
Speaker 1: Data helps you to discover inequities within the communities. But
Speaker 1: that same data, different data that you gather can also
Speaker 1: help you to develop solutions. You know, you will find
Speaker 1: some pockets of underserved communities where they're doing maybe better
Speaker 1: than other communities. So you can get the data, whether
Speaker 1: it's around hypertension, diabetes, are physician assets, bias, racism, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And analyzing that data helps you develop solutions that may
Speaker 1: work within the community. The problem is is the data accurate?
Speaker 1: Is it comprehensive? Does it include all communities? Well, it
Speaker 1: still comes down to garbage and garbage out. If it's
Speaker 1: not inclusive, then you have communities who are left at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage. So what happens with the funding? Do they
Speaker 1: get the funding? Resources go to those areas that are
Speaker 1: identified that have a need, and if they can't be identified,
Speaker 1: you can't get the resources to those communities. In June,
Speaker 1: more House School of Medicine received a forty million dollar
Speaker 1: grant to help fight COVID nineteen by nurturing existing partnerships
Speaker 1: and developing new ones. Dr MCIN team created a network
Speaker 1: designed to work with community based organizations across the nation
Speaker 1: to deliver education and information to help fight the pandemic
Speaker 1: with the National COVID nineteen Resiliency Network. Once we received
Speaker 1: the award, the first step was to develop, strengthen and
Speaker 1: secure partners. We have about forty fives to teach it partners.
Speaker 1: Another two plus community based partners. It's a team. So
Speaker 1: what we had to do is build the program to
Speaker 1: meet the objectives that we had proposed and to meet
Speaker 1: mainly the barrier of overcoming obstacles within communities, to link
Speaker 1: the disproportion impacted communities to care. Still, the issue comes,
Speaker 1: just like with the data, that the best technology, the
Speaker 1: latest technology, gets to certain communities first. So we started
Speaker 1: to work with our technology partners to make sure that
Speaker 1: we developed a communication system will first get the message
Speaker 1: out to people how to be safe, social distance, masking, fascination,
Speaker 1: et cetera, but get it out in their language. So
Speaker 1: we have about thirty languages now that could reach those
Speaker 1: partners mobilely within their homes on their mobile phones, etcetera.
Speaker 1: KPMG is our major partner with that, and then developed
Speaker 1: the messaging that can overcome those barriers. How do you
Speaker 1: convince somebody remotely to take a vaccine um that takes messaging,
Speaker 1: that takes testing other messaging, but also utilizing messaging out
Speaker 1: there that's already successful and working hand in hand with
Speaker 1: the Office of Minority Health who provided this award, And
Speaker 1: then c d C and i H and others to
Speaker 1: team up to affect communities. So how do you develop
Speaker 1: a program where you're fair and equitable and that you're
Speaker 1: addressing all the needs. The force multiplier is to include
Speaker 1: the community at the beginning stage in the development of
Speaker 1: these programs and give them the resource. The United States
Speaker 1: has the resources, give them the resources to develop an
Speaker 1: implemented program. So having someone of a light racial, ethnic group,
Speaker 1: al disability, someone else who's who has been an immigrant
Speaker 1: to the United States, a refugees to adminage program to
Speaker 1: you as a refugee who understands your plite, you know,
Speaker 1: that's powerful. They're more likely to listen to them than
Speaker 1: they are to me. So it's understanding the importance of
Speaker 1: that communication from a trusted source. That's been the cornerstone
Speaker 1: of the program. To seek and rely on partners who
Speaker 1: really know these communities to disseminate a message within their
Speaker 1: own communities. Advice I would give to others who wanted
Speaker 1: to make an impact is find something that you truly
Speaker 1: like to do. You know a lot of people have
Speaker 1: jobs they really don't like, So do something you really
Speaker 1: enjoy and hopefully that's something where you can give back
Speaker 1: to others. I think when you can give back, um,
Speaker 1: you're more satisfied at the end of the day. And
Speaker 1: if you're thinking too much about people thinking about you
Speaker 1: every day and what you do, I think you're thinking wrong.
Speaker 1: Just do the best you can for others. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about your legacy. Right, It's gonna be what it's gonna be,
Speaker 1: But the best way to build it is to work
Speaker 1: for the people. You know, if you can help one person,
Speaker 1: if you could save one life, I mean, that's tremendous.
Speaker 1: You aren't those some extraordinary people. I'm glad they're on
Speaker 1: our side against this pandemic. And they both spoke to
Speaker 1: the value of communication, which is kind of what stands
Speaker 1: out to me that they share. Aurelia spoke about it
Speaker 1: as one of the greatest challenges in administering the kvac's facility,
Speaker 1: and as one of the most important skills communicating among
Speaker 1: the partners with imperfect information that's constantly changing, keeping everyone
Speaker 1: updated with the latest, investing for possible and being mindful
Speaker 1: of who's in the best position to act on a decision. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Dr Max spoke of communication on the ground and the
Speaker 1: value of trusted messengers in convincing people to take certain
Speaker 1: actions for their health, like getting vaccinated. The awareness that
Speaker 1: it's not just the message, but the messenger and the
Speaker 1: language that the messenger uses is key to closing some
Speaker 1: of our health equity gaps. It's clear technology plays of
Speaker 1: critical role and facilitating and accelerating these efforts. For Aurelia,
Speaker 1: it's enabling fast to access to vaccines with a single
Speaker 1: secure portal that all participating countries can use, sharing information
Speaker 1: and communicating with more efficiency and greater accountability. For dr MAC,
Speaker 1: it's leveraging technology to collect and assess community data, isolating
Speaker 1: the pockets of inequities that exist, and developing customized messaging
Speaker 1: to address them. Both Aurelia and dr MAC have crossed
Speaker 1: the lines that often separate us by profession, organization, industry,
Speaker 1: and even nation. They've built teams and use their talents
Speaker 1: to pursue the achievable goal that everyone can live a
Speaker 1: full and healthy life. Do you want to dig in
Speaker 1: more on today's guests and the work they're doing, or
Speaker 1: maybe you want to understand what action you can take
Speaker 1: in your community. Either way, go to salesforce dot org
Speaker 1: slash force multiplier. That's one word, force multiplier. Force Multiplier
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and salesforce dot org.
Speaker 1: Hosted by me barretton day Thurston. It's executive produced by
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Stewart, produced by Ivan Chien, and engineered, edited and
Speaker 1: mixed by James Foster. Join us next time for more
Speaker 1: stories of how we can change the world, one relationship
Speaker 1: at a time. Listen to Force Multiplier on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcast