Center for Societal Benefit through Healthcare

The Center was established to integrate, amplify, and extend efforts to improve healthcare by investing in issues deeply relevant to society.

Improving healthcare has long been a central part of the mission of McKinsey’s Public & Social Sector and Healthcare Systems & Services Practices. Through the Center for Societal Benefit through Healthcare, McKinsey redoubles this commitment by deploying our capabilities to historically under-resourced areas of healthcare critical for the benefit of society.

The Center for Societal Benefit through Healthcare aspires to collaborate with other organizations to drive positive innovation to ultimately improve overall health and well-being and reduce healthcare disparities. In light of the current healthcare crisis, we are also working with a range of stakeholders to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable populations, including, but not limited to, racial and ethnic minorities, essential service workers, children, older adults, and those with clinical risk factors.

Five focus areas

Mental Health

Mental health encompasses a person’s emotional, psychological, and social state. Each year, one in five adults experiences mental illness, and within their lifetimes, one in two will experience mental illness in the United States.

Substance Use

A substance use disorder occurs when the habitual use of alcohol, drugs, or both causes health problems and/or reduces an individual’s ability to live their daily life as they otherwise would. Approximately 20 million adults in the United States have a substance use disorder.

Social Determinants of Health

Health is affected by a range of social and economic conditions. Approximately 40 percent of health status can be attributed to underlying factors such as income, employment, education, food, housing, transportation, social support, and safety.

Rural Health

One in six Americans—46 million people—lives in a rural area. A significant gap in health exists between rural and urban Americans, with rural Americans more likely to die from conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and opioid overdoses.

Maternal Health

The health of women in the time leading up to and following childbirth is referred to as maternal health. Over the past two decades, maternal mortality rates in the United States have increased by 50 to 70 percent, and rates of severe maternal morbidity have more than doubled.

Our approach

We aim to accomplish our objective through four strategies:

Conducting and sharing research
Developing analytic tools for public use
Partnering with organizations to develop novel solutions to long-standing problems with the explicit purpose of sharing results so others can replicate what proves effective
Convening and supporting multi-stakeholder collaborations

We bring McKinsey’s full global capabilities and resources to bear, including our healthcare expertise, advanced analytics, functional knowledge, technology assets, network, and investment capacity. With this in mind, making progress will depend on collaborating with other organizations seeking to innovate in these areas.

Featured content

Webinar

Unlocking whole person care through behavioral health

Center for Societal Benefit through Healthcare coleads, Erica Hutchins Coe and Kana Enomoto, discuss the systemic challenges facing behavioral healthcare, key actions to address these challenges, and the societal benefit that stakeholders can achieve by implementing these actions, including a reduction of $185 billion in annual US healthcare spending.

Interactive

Vulnerable Populations Data Hub

McKinsey’s open-access dashboard looks at populations and geographies with physical or behavioral health vulnerability and their risk for developing COVID-19.

Podcast

COVID-19 and behavioral health: Consequences for companies and employees

December 2, 2020 – Diane Brady speaks with Erica Hutchins Coe and Kana Enomoto, coleaders of McKinsey’s Center for Societal Benefit through Healthcare, about the behavioral-health consequences of the COVID-19 crisis and strategies to help leaders and individuals address them.

Featured initiative

We have supported Shatterproof, a national non-profit organization dedicated to reversing the addiction crisis in the U.S., in their development of a national strategy to help reduce the stigma around opioid addiction. View this report, “A Movement to End Addiction Stigma,” for more detail, including specific action plans that organizations across the country can adopt to reduce stigma.

Featured insights

Article

Five ways to design a better mental-health future for a stressed-out workforce

November 3, 2020 – Almost 41 percent of Americans struggle with mental-health issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, but many companies remain...

Article

Understanding the hidden costs of COVID-19’s potential impact on US healthcare

September 4, 2020 – While the direct impact of COVID-19 has already been substantial, additional layers of delayed or indirect impact have the potential...