Health equity – Eyeing the greater good, also for investors Leave a comment

Achieving health equity – the state, or goal, of ensuring that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health[1] – can deliver benefits for wider society, most notably an increased productive life expectancy.  

Globally, the relationship between income and health outcomes has long been well understood. How much money you earn impacts your life expectancy and causes of death (see Exhibits 1 and 2).

This is also true on a national level. In the US, for example, the richest males live an average of 15 years longer than their poorest counterparts; for females, the difference is 10 years.[2] In England, there is a 19-year gap between the most and least affluent areas of the country.

While we would agree that improving access to healthcare matters for diminishing these disparities, we also believe that attention must be paid to the social determinants of health (SDOH) – non-medical factors that influence health outcomes. These include the environment in which people live, their gender or race, and their educational attainment.

The interconnected nature of these factors is one of the challenges facing investors wishing to address health equity. For one, many of the companies negatively impacting health outcomes tend to operate outside of the health sector.

They include utilities which are among the causes of local and global pollution and food companies that sell unhealthy foods to vulnerable populations. Addressing health equity thus requires a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach.

How to improve health equity?  

Legislation can help to tackle some of the social determinants. For instance, sugar-sweetened drinks can contribute to obesity and obesity-related conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, thus raising public health costs. Their pricing can be said to be a factor in the harm caused, often more so to low-income groups.

Taxes on such drinks can encourage people to cut their consumption. They can “[mobilize] revenue for countries that could be used to realize universal health coverage”, according to the World Health Organization.

Health can also be improved where measures are taken to reduce pollution. Research shows that air pollution disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of colour – often due to their proximity to fossil fuel burning facilities – making them more vulnerable to associated health problems.

The link between health equity and broader sustainability is reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

For instance, SDG 11.6 – “By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management”. The aim is to reduce particulate matter pollution because “these particles are able to penetrate deeply into the respiratory tract and therefore constitute a risk for health …”

There is a direct link with SDG 3.4. This aims to “reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases [by 2030]”.

Private sector solutions

Stopping harmful activity can be part of the solution. But there are also many positive actions which companies and investors can support to tackle the challenge:

Social determinants:   

  • Invest in companies developing the production of novel foods which may serve as like-for-like replacements for unhealthy ingredients
  • Invest in technology companies focused on healthier habits using behavioural patterning[3] 
  • Invest in companies supporting the development of affordable housing. 

Health: 

  • Invest in companies focused on value-based care
  • Invest in companies supporting telehealth, which can help provide care for underserved populations
  • Invest in companies developing novel drug development or delivery mechanisms which improve access to medicines (e.g., by making them easier to administer or more stable for transport to hard-to-reach areas)
  • Invest in companies developing low-cost generics and biosimilars which can make treatments more cost-effective and accessible. 

Engagement: 

  • Support proactive policies to make healthy foods cheaper, perhaps paying for these subsidies via taxes on unhealthy foods/substances.
  • Encourage more pharmaceutical companies to adopt best practices in clinical trial transparency and to increase diversity in their testing to ensure better representation of effectivity of drugs 

A focus on innovation

Our ecosystem restoration strategy focuses on investing in companies solving environmental problems, many of which are linked to the food system and the circular economy. Many of these companies also produce outputs which improve health outcomes.

Our healthcare innovation strategy is built around the premise that health demand is already, and will continue to be, growing at a faster pace than the broad economy on the back of megatrends such as world population growth and ageing, lifestyle changes and rising wealth in emerging markets. We believe innovation in healthcare can bring transformative benefits to society and the economy.

[1] What is Health Equity? (cdc.gov)  

[2] It should be noted that the US is somewhat of an outlier on a global level  

[3] New thinking points that low supply of healthy food is less responsible for the issue than high demand for unhealthy food. What Really Happens When a Grocery Store Opens in a ‘Food Desert’? (nyu.edu) 

Disclaimer

Please note that articles may contain technical language. For this reason, they may not be suitable for readers without professional investment experience. Any views expressed here are those of the author as of the date of publication, are based on available information, and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may take different investment decisions for different clients. This document does not constitute investment advice. The value of investments and the income they generate may go down as well as up and it is possible that investors will not recover their initial outlay. Past performance is no guarantee for future returns. Investing in emerging markets, or specialised or restricted sectors is likely to be subject to a higher-than-average volatility due to a high degree of concentration, greater uncertainty because less information is available, there is less liquidity or due to greater sensitivity to changes in market conditions (social, political and economic conditions). Some emerging markets offer less security than the majority of international developed markets. For this reason, services for portfolio transactions, liquidation and conservation on behalf of funds invested in emerging markets may carry greater risk.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment risk: The lack of common or harmonised definitions and labels integrating ESG and sustainability criteria at EU level may result in different approaches by managers when setting ESG objectives. This also means that it may be difficult to compare strategies integrating ESG and sustainability criteria to the extent that the selection and weightings applied to select investments may be based on metrics that may share the same name but have different underlying meanings. In evaluating a security based on the ESG and sustainability criteria, the Investment Manager may also use data sources provided by external ESG research providers. Given the evolving nature of ESG, these data sources may for the time being be incomplete, inaccurate or unavailable. Applying responsible business conduct standards in the investment process may lead to the exclusion of securities of certain issuers. Consequently, (the Sub-Fund’s) performance may at times be better or worse than the performance of relatable funds that do not apply such standards.

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