Moving Upstream: Understanding SUD Through the Lens of Social and Health Equity

Release Date: 2/3/23

Expire Date: 7/31/24

This virtual educational activity is jointly provided by the Connecticut Hospital Association and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services

Target Audience: Physicians, nurses, social workers, quality professionals, risk managers, healthcare executives, and all healthcare professionals working with women and families impacted by trauma and addiction.

Description: Many practitioners know what the research has long demonstrated—that social and structural factors like unemployment, housing instability, and structural racism drive poor health outcomes and inequities related to substance use disorder (SUD). And, while there have been major scientific advancements in our understanding of SUD, these racial inequities persist, largely due to these social and structural factors. But how are these social and structural drivers of health inequity related to SUD? How do they impact our approach to SUD? And how do we translate our knowledge of these factors into action and demonstrable improvements in health equity and racial justice for patients and communities experiencing high rates of SUD? Join us for an important conversation with Dr. Rishi Manchanda about Moving Upstream: Understanding SUD Through the Lens of Social and Health Equity.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this activity, participants should be better able to:

• Describe social and structural drivers of health equity and why they matter to healthcare and improving outcomes related to substance use disorder (SUD)

• Describe the levels of action required to improve social and structural drivers of health equity for SUD

• List at least two concrete steps to help improve social and structural drivers of health equity related to SUD

Your Faculty:

Rishi Manchanda, MD, MPH, is a primary care physician and public health professional who has spent his career helping to advance health equity in marginalized, resource-poor communities in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Manchanda is Founder & CEO of HealthBegins, a national mission-driven consulting and training firm that helps healthcare and community partners radically improve care, health equity, and the social and structural factors that make people sick in the first place. In his 2013 book, The Upstream Doctors, and subsequent TED talk, he introduced “upstreamists,” a new cadre of leaders who are equipped to transform healthcare’s capacity to improve the social and structural drivers of health equity. The book has become recommended reading in medical schools and universities around the world.

Prior to HealthBegins, Dr. Manchanda served as the first chief medical officer for one of America’s largest private companies, he developed and ran clinics and health programs for nearly 10,000 rural, largely immigrant workers in California’s Central Valley. Before that, he was the lead primary care physician for homeless Veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, where he integrated and scaled new models of care to better address patients’ medical, housing, and legal needs.