WASHINGTON, D.C.—Karen DeSalvo, M.D., chief health officer at tech giant Google, said she grew up as a “food insecure kid.”
“There’s a sense of embarrassment to be dependent on others, to be on the free lunch line,” DeSalvo said while speaking on a panel about social determinants of health at the Health Datapalooza conference Monday.
It’s one of the reasons DeSalvo, former assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), helped form a private-public collaboration to address the nonmedical drivers of health.
The National Alliance to Impact the Social Determinants of Health (NASDOH) includes healthcare organizations, public health and social services groups focused on how technology, data and analytics combined with policy advocacy can help address social determinants of health efforts, she said.
