In this webinar, Dr. Alister Martin, CEO and Founder of A Healthier Democracy, shares his reflections on the need to move our efforts upstream of health-related social needs, upstream even of the social determinants of health, to target the structural determinants of health.
He illustrates this with two initiatives under the umbrella of A Healthier Democracy: Vot-ER, which engages health care providers and facilities in voter registration, and Link Health which utilizes healthcare waiting rooms to connect Americans with $80 Billion of untapped federal and state cash aid programs to directly impact their lives. As one example, Link Health connects patients to the Affordable Connectivity Program, doing 90% of the work to sign people up for federal aid that will help them get a digital device and offset the cost of internet access. This same model can be used to connect patients to federal aid for emergency rental assistance and the Child Tax Credit.
Leveraging the Healthcare Sector to Deploy $80B in Unused Federal Aid with Dr. Alister Martin, CEO of A Healthier Democracy
from Rx Foundation’s Power is a Social Determinant of Health series
Session description: In the U.S., there are over 60 million eligible yet unregistered voters. These voters often feel the government does not care about them, nor trust it to make a difference in their lives. They are also the same groups most marginalized by our healthcare system. Healthcare facilities offer unique opportunities to engage these individuals, with healthcare professionals acting as reliable conduits of trust. A Healthier Democracy runs two national programs, Link Health and its sister initiative, Vot-ER, which utilize healthcare waiting rooms to connect Americans with $80 Billion of untapped federal and state aid programs to directly impact their lives and then help them register to vote. This combination of healthcare and non-partisan democratic engagement harnesses interdisciplinary expertise to address health equity, rebuild trust in government, and empower the most vulnerable patients in our democracy – helping to demonstrate that the government does care and that all voices do matter.
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If you’re interested in connecting with Dr. Alister Martin, or to generally learn more about any of A Healthier Democracy’s initiatives, you can reach him or his team: [email protected].
Speaker
Dr. Alister Martin (he/him), MD MPP, CEO and Founder of A Healthier Democracy
Dr. Alister Martin is an ER physician and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School and was a former Chief Resident at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He was a former Biden Administration appointee serving as an advisor in the Office of the Vice President under Kamala Harris as an appointed White House Fellow. He served as a former Health Policy Aide to Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont and Congressman Raul Ruiz of California. He leverages his background in politics, policy, and the field of behavioral economics to use healthcare settings as a place to build programs that serve the needs of vulnerable patients.
He is the founder of Vot-ER, a nonpartisan voter registration organization that has organized over 26,000 healthcare providers and 300 hospitals to help non-urgent patients register to vote. He is the founder of Get Waivered, a program that is converting our nation’s ERs into the front door for opioid addiction treatment and was instrumental in the organizing efforts resulting in the removal of the X waiver provision. He also co-founded GOTVax, an initiative aimed at leveraging a get out the vote framework to deliver vaccines directly to vulnerable communities via hyper-targeted vaccine pop up clinics. He currently serves as CEO of A Healthier Democracy, a nonprofit healthcare organizing incubator which leverages healthcare workers and healthcare settings as a place to build programs and movements that serve the needs of vulnerable patients.
Alister’s work has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, British Medical Journal, and has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, the BBC, the Washington Post, BBC, and Scientific American. Alister earned his MD from Harvard Medical School as a Presidential Scholar, his Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School as a fellow in the Center for Public Leadership, and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Rutgers University where he was a Division 1 tennis player.
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Social determinants of health are the causes of poor health (i.e. homelessness). Health-related social needs are the individualized experiences (i.e. frostbite acquired through lack of housing in the winter)