The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

Can We Make Companies Care About Your Health? | Building H Co-Founder Thomas Goetz

Feb 10, 2025

Thomas Goetz, a journalist and entrepreneur, co-founded Building H to address corporate health accountability. He discusses how many products prioritize profits over wellness, making healthy choices tough for Americans. Goetz introduces a corporate health index aimed at evaluating companies' impact on consumer health. He highlights successful models like Pokémon Go that encourage healthier behavior. The conversation emphasizes the need for businesses to integrate health metrics into their models and the potential of public benefit corporations to lead this shift.

35:52

Episode guests

Thomas Goetz

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Corporate responsibility for health extends beyond healthcare to everyday products, urging companies to recognize their impact on consumer well-being.

Small changes in corporate practices, such as redesigning products, can lead to significant improvements in public health outcomes over time.

Deep dives

The Role of Accountability in Health Outcomes

Accountability in healthcare extends beyond healthcare companies to the products impacting daily life. The social determinants of health, which encompass factors like diet, environment, and social connections, significantly influence well-being. It is crucial for companies producing goods that affect health to take responsibility for their impact, rather than placing the onus solely on consumers. This perspective shifts the narrative towards holding these industries accountable, advocating for a reevaluation of their practices to promote healthier choices.

Intro

2min

Navigating the Challenges of Individual Empowerment in Health

2min

Redesigning Health: Corporate Responsibility and Community Well-Being

18min

Incremental Change for Healthier Social Media

7min

Integrating Health into Business Models: The Role of Public Benefit Corporations

6min

From fast food drive-throughs to Netflix autoplay, many of America's favorite products are designed to maximize profits at the expense of our health. But Thomas Goetz, co-founder of Building H, believes there's a better way. In this episode about corporate responsibility and public health, the former WIRED editor explains why changing company behavior may be easier than changing consumer habits – and how a new health accountability index could help transform America.

We cover:

🏗️ Why the structure of modern society makes healthy choices nearly impossible for most Americans

📊 How Building H's new corporate health index is measuring companies' impact on consumer wellbeing

🎮 The surprising companies getting health right, from Pokemon Go to sustainable housing developers

📈 Why health metrics should be included in ESG frameworks and corporate KPIs

🏃‍♀️ The challenge of aligning corporate profits with positive health outcomes

🔄 How small product changes can drive meaningful population health improvements

💡 Why traditional public health approaches need reinvention for today's challenges

🏢 The role of public benefit corporations in building health-first businesses

—

About our guest:

Thomas Goetz is a journalist, entrepreneur, and author. He uses data and design and stories to help people understand and navigate complicated issues in their world.

Thomas is the co-founder of Iodine, an award-winning website that has helped millions of people make sense of their health and medicines. In 2016, Iodine was acquired by GoodRx, America’s leading source for prescription drug savings, where he presently serves as chief of research. Thomas was previously the executive editor at WIRED, which he led to a dozen National Magazine Awards in as many years. He began his career as a reporter at the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal. He also wrote the LaunchPad column for Inc. magazine.

Thomas is co-founder of Building H, a nonprofit with a mission to build health into everyday life. He has written two books, most recently the 2014 bestseller The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis. He served as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Curator-in-Residence for Adobe Systems. His TED talk on visualizing medical data has been viewed half a million times.

Goetz holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's in American literature from the University of Virginia. He graduated from Bates College, and lives in San Francisco.

—

Show notes:

Building H Index

—

🙏 If you're enjoying the show, we would so appreciate it if you left us a review!

—

📍 Connect with us:

Heart of Healthcare website

Twitter

—

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.