February 9, 2023
What does healthy mean to you?
Whether our members are working one-on-one with a coach, joining live group coaching sessions or using digital resources, the impact is clear. Watch this short video to hear what ActiveHealth members have to say.
Dr. Lia Gass Rodriguez, Chief Medical Officer
February 2, 2023
It’s February and hearts are all around and not just because of Valentine’s Day. February is also National Heart Month. I want to focus on the importance of heart health for women, particularly considering the unfortunate fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States. That’s why it’s crucial for us to be aware of our heart health and take steps to maintain it.
How can we take care of ourselves when it comes to our hearts?
Heart disease is a term used to describe a range of conditions that affect the heart, including coronary artery disease, heart attacks, heart failure, and arrhythmias. Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, lack of physical activity, poor diet, and a family history of heart disease. Certain medical conditions, such as diabetes, can also increase the risk of heart disease. It is often called the silent killer because many people don’t know they have it until they’re in the midst of a cardiac event. Even then, they may not recognize the signs and symptoms of an attack. Classic symptoms of pain in the chest and arm are often present in men, but women can have more subtle symptoms. Nausea, shortness of breath and back or jaw pain are all symptoms of a heart attack in women. Unfortunately, these symptoms are also all easily mistaken for other medical issues. According to one study, more than 60% of female participants had more than three non-chest pain symptoms. And 53% of female participants said their health care providers didn’t think the symptoms were heart related.1
Not only are heart symptoms harder to identify in women, but cultural factors can also make women less likely to react to them. Women often adopt the role of caregiver, prioritizing the needs of others and downplaying their own health needs. However, it is always important to remember that caring for yourself, however that manifests, is not selfish. It could be spending time with friends, doing something you enjoy or just soaking in a hot bath. It’s also getting your preventive health care, noticing new symptoms, and acting on them if they appear. There is a reason why, in airline safety demonstrations, they say put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. If you are not safe and healthy yourself, you can’t successfully care for others.
So how can we take care of ourselves when it comes to our hearts? By adopting a healthy lifestyle, managing medical conditions, and seeking prompt medical attention if symptoms arise, women can reduce their risk of heart disease and maintain a healthy heart. Here are some tips that can help.
One last tip – spend time with people you care about. Strong relationships and a supportive community can play a significant role in maintaining a healthy heart. Studies have shown that women with strong social support have a reduced risk of heart disease, while social isolation can increase the risk.2 So, make sure to surround yourself with positive, supportive friends and family and nurture those relationships.
Taking care of yourself in mind, body, and spirit is the best way to ensure that you’ll be around to care for the people you love when they need it. In a way, taking care of your own heart is a beautiful act of love!
1Healthline.com. Bahl, R. Doctors Missed Heart Attack Signs in Women 50% of the Time. September 18, 2018. Available here. Accessed December 23, 2022.
2Golaszewski NM, LaCroix AZ, Godino JG, et al. Evaluation of Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Cardiovascular Disease Among Older Women in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e2146461. Available here. Accessed February 1, 2023.
This is not medical advice or intended to be a substitution for proper medical advice given by a licensed provider.
Dr. Lia Gass Rodriguez, Chief Medical Officer
January 18, 2023
Welcome to the new year! We’re coming out of a season of celebration that’s often marked by cultural and family traditions. Many of these traditions include delicious foods tied to childhood memories. I can remember my grandmother – now in her 90s – stirring her famous black beans with love every year. They simmered for hours to be later served atop a heaping serving of white rice and alongside roasted pork shoulder. In my own family, we are making new memories and traditions by baking my mother-in-law’s decadent cookies. These cookies have three sticks of butter and four egg yolks, but they are so good.
The start of a new year is often full of reflection. It’s common to think about the goals you want to accomplish in the coming months. Oftentimes these goals involve how and what we eat. As a doctor working in the area of population health, I’m very much in favor of people thinking about their health and how to improve it. Healthful eating can prevent and even treat many chronic diseases. We generally recommend eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, limiting dairy and eggs and avoiding sugary drinks, processed foods and red meats. However, the goals we set and the changes we make to our nutrition need to fit within our understanding of who we are. Food, especially, can be a big part of that identity.
I’m someone who loves the whole experience of food, the sight, smell and taste of it. I love finding new foods as I travel. Whether I’m in a new country or a new region of our own, so much of the culture of a place is present in the food. And because food is an integral part of culture, and how we fit within it, it can be difficult to change eating patterns established over a lifetime. Just ask a Texan how they’d feel about giving up barbecue entirely.
As we set our goals around making healthier food choices, I like to suggest we look for the small changes we can make that still respect our cultures and traditions. These small changes are more sustainable in the long run. That Texan I mentioned doesn’t have to give up barbecue entirely, but they could eat it once a week instead of several times. And it isn’t just about what we reduce in our diets – it is often about what we add. Incorporating daily servings of fruits, vegetables and whole grains into the meals we already enjoy can have a lasting impact on our health.
In my own life, I try to make healthy choices that make an occasional indulgence possible. I’m serving more plant-based and whole foods in family meals. My 3-year-old has declared roasted “crunchy” chickpeas her favorite side dish. I also look for ways to make substitutions in recipes that I love. I use olive oil in my cooking instead of butter and I make my grandma’s picadillo with ground turkey instead of beef. Some recipes I just don’t want to change. I can’t imagine making my mother-in-law’s cookies without all that butter, so I don’t, but I don’t make them all the time. In a way, that makes them all the more special when we make them during the holidays.
So, as you look at the year ahead and think about your nutrition – what small changes could you make while respecting your cultural traditions? My grandma’s black beans atop a heaping plate of quinoa sounds really delicious!
This is not medical advice or intended to be a substitution for proper medical advice given by a licensed provider.
Larry Siegel, Executive Vice President, Reporting & Informatics
January 18, 2023
When designing any clinical program, a critical part of development is deciding how you’ll find people who would benefit from it. Depending on the program you’re designing, you may be interested in a specific condition or set of conditions, clinical complexity or urgency. Many programs include goals for both improving health outcomes and reducing health care costs. It might be tempting to include past health care cost as an identifier, but to quote Warren Buffet, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
In a completely equitable world, we’d all be able to achieve our best health.
In a completely equitable world, we’d all be able to achieve our best health. Doctors would be available to people in rural, urban and suburban settings. People would all be able to find and use reliable information to make decisions about their health. Cost wouldn’t be an impediment to care. But we’ve long known that health disparities are widespread. Low health care costs or a lack of claims doesn’t necessarily indicate good health.
Organizations that have used claims data as an identification strategy have found their pool of potential participants skewed toward people with access to health care. They’ve also found them to be lacking in diversity. At ActiveHealth, our mission is to help people achieve their best health in body, mind and spirit. To do that, we need to know as much as possible about our members in order to provide a highly personalized experience. We use a multi-dimensional approach to identification that includes information from multiple sources, including self-reported data. We look at clinical markers, gaps in care and social risk factors during the identification. Then we craft a plan to address both clinical and non-clinical barriers to health improvement.
Since inception we’ve been confident that this multi-dimensional approach helps to limit identification bias. However, we run an analysis periodically to confirm it. Our most recent analysis shows that we continue to identify a rich, diverse pool of members for our clinical programs. Variance in identification for some conditions clearly align with higher prevalence of these conditions within populations. After adjusting for these higher rates of incidence, we are pleased to see that our identification rates are similar across groups of the population.
At ActiveHealth, we believe that conscientious use of data – first in identification and then in engagement – is critical to helping each person achieve their best possible health.