Center for Social Impact

We are committed to addressing the root causes of health disparities and increasing health equity by investing in initiatives and programs that foster an environment where our members, patients, and communities have fair and just opportunities to attain their highest level of health. Health outcomes are influenced by systemic issues like discrimination and the "conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age," which include social determinants of health (SDOH), as well as "nonmedical factors" such as food and housing security and economic stability.1 

In support of our mission to provide members with the right care, in the right way, at the right time,UPMC Insurance Services Division, in collaboration with the UPMC Center for High-Value Health Care, launched the UPMC Center for Social Impact in December 2019.

The UPMC Center for Social Impact strives to:

  • Establish a social impact strategy.
  • Document and report contributions and outcomes from across UPMC Insurance Services that impact SDOH.
  • Coordinate SDOH programming across UPMC Insurance Services.
  • Develop and incubate pilot programming.
  • Support the evaluation and dissemination of results impacting the social needs of our members.


Since its founding, the Center for Social Impact has become a driving force behind collaborations and programming that simultaneously serve our community by addressing social needs and leverage UPMC’s integrated delivery and finance system (IDFS) toward shaping a more equitable health care system. To learn more, see:

Email our team directly at socialimpact@upmc.edu to explore opportunities to collaborate with us.

1U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024 Jan 17). Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). Retrieved September 4, 2024 from cdc.gov.

 

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Our Work

UPMC Health Plan is already leading the industry in transforming care delivery and the health care ecosystem through innovation, and our commitment to social initiatives goes back at least a decade. We collaborate with stakeholders from community-based organizations and across UPMC, including resource navigators. Social Impact focuses on these key domains: addressing basic social needs like housing and employment, coordinating and expanding access to benefits, and supporting underserved communities and individuals with unique health needs, such as members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Examples of initiatives in the communities UPMC serves include:

Increasing Employment and Workforce Development

Unemployment can be a barrier to healthcare access. As one of the largest employers in the state, UPMC continues to think creatively about how to create workforce development and training initiatives that helped individuals find stable careers that pay family-sustaining wages. This initiative, Pathways to Work, has resulted in several collaborations and programs to build and expand workforce services.

Housing through Homeward

At UPMC Health Plan, we believe that access to affordable, stable housing is crucial to long-term physical and mental health as well as an individual's well-being. Evidence shows that stable housing positively impacts health outcomes and may also provide a critical foundation for addressing other SDOH factors such as education, food security, and healthcare affordability and access.

Collaborating with Community-based Organizations

Critical to our success are the strong collaborations that we have fostered with community-based organizations (CBOs) to create 38 unique programs targeting social needs such as housing, food access/nutrition, workforce/employment, transportation, childcare access and affordability, clothing/basic necessities, financial strain, healthcare access and affordability, utilities, and health literacy.

Coordinating and Expanding Access to Benefits

We have been collaborators in designing and implementing twenty-six unique benefit programs to address social needs for members across the lifespan and life experience.

Implementing Innovation

We develop, pilot, evaluate, and scale innovative programming to improve healthcare access, quality, and affordability for our members.

UPMC Health Plan Neighborhood Center

This collaborative project to build an evaluation model for the UPMC Health Plan’s Neighborhood Center is led by UPMC Community Services and receives funding from UPMC Community HealthChoices and evaluation support from the UPMC Center for High-Value Health Care and Center for Social Impact.