Health Education Resource Database

Due to a lack of culturally competent health providers in BIPOC communities and a lack of inclusive resources for BIPOC communities; this leads to mistrust of the health care system and thus increased morbidity rates among BIPOC communities. 

The Health Education Resource Database will provide scientifically based health information in a digestive manner, educate and inform community members about pertinent health information, provide access to culturally competent and equitable health education resources, and encourage the pursuit of health activism among community members. 

To accomplish this, we will be creating 45min -1hr long videos on youtube where we interview culturally diverse health experts. Then, we will create short videos, 2-3 mins, that we will share on our various social media platforms,. Doing so, will not only ensure we spread awareness about a health topic, gauging people's interests, but also encourage audiences to watch the whole interview on our youtube channel. 

18-49 BIPOC community

Our target population is 18-49 y/o who live in the USA. This age range will help create a healthier older generation. In addition, this age range will help us target the most used social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, instagram) in order to ensure health information is able to be accessed. Not to mention, this age range will also ensure we are able to touch on a wide variety of health topics. 

All founders come from diverse cultural backgrounds and are members of the BIPOC community in the USA. We have all had unique experiences with the healthcare sector, not just as consumers of health, but also as providers within different areas of the healthcare sector.

Our different experiences, both negative and positive, have allowed us to have the opportunity to critically observe how people of different ages, cultures, ethnicities, social backgrounds, and economic backgrounds, also interact with healthcare in the USA, and the impact their experiences have on us as individuals. These experiences have encouraged us to come together and push the creation of a platform that undeniably provides access to culturally competent and digestible health information. 

The COVID-19 pandemic further exasperated the many issues commonly observed in the healthcare system: 1) How do I know what information to trust?, 2) What do I need to know?, and 3) How can I be sure I can trust this expert?. These ideas have motivated and inspired the ideas of HERD. 

To ensure we are actively meeting the needs of our target audience, HERD understands it is vital to always be conducting research. In our project, we will conduct research on health topics and the health experts sharing information to ensure they represent our audience and the health topic. To add, research will also include reaching out to the audience via the publishing of surveys on our different media platforms. This will help us measure the efficacy of the health information we share with them and also allow us to determine what health topics are of interest to them. We will also analyze our media analytics to see who is interacting with our database and how we can gauge or presence and the way we share information in order to best benefit our audience. In addition, we will actively pursue receiving feedback from community editors. These community editors will come from diverse social/education backgrounds. Altogether, this will ensure HERD creates a platform that provides access to culturally competent and digestible health information.  

HERD believes our most poignant barrier at our current stage of development is financial. 

HERD would benefit from receiving more feedback on how to create a business model that promotes stability and longevity. 

While HERD has a business model idea, we do not believe we fully understand the intricacies of running our idea and would benefit from more critical feedback.

Our solution is innovative because it uses social media and videos, which are the most ubiquitous modes of media these days, to explain complicated health information in simple terms to BIPOC communities. We expect our professional, scientifically backed videos to be one of the main trusted sources for general health education in BIPOC communities. While we do not expect it to change the market, we do for see our solution promoting  partnership with other existing health resources and increasing health and science advocacy for the BIPOC community. 

HERDS goals are:

1. Provide scientifically based health information in a digestible manner. 

2. Educate and inform community members about pertinent health information.

3. Provide access to culturally competent and equitable health education resources. 

4. Encourage the pursuit of health activism among community members.

To accomplish this, HERD has made a 1 year plan. For the first 6 months, we will be releasing a total of 10 health interviews. Then, we will take a 1 month hiatus from publishing to critically analyze our research and discuss what went well and what areas of the project need improvement. HERD will then make a comeback with more interviews, more health experts, and an improved approach. 

The technology that powers our solution is social media and the internet. By creating platforms on YOUTUBE , FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM , TWITTER , and TIK TOK, we will be able to ensure we are reaching are target audience and that are health information is accessible to different demographics.  

Our approach to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusivity is through; creating a diverse team of people that make up our organization; our mission to provide scientifically based health information in a digestible manner; to bring equitable, culturally competent health information to BIPOC communities; and to encourage the pursuit of health activism among community members. 

Our business model is based on taking health-related topics and making them highly digestible with emphasis on BIPOC communities. We will take user data from our social media platforms in order to provide pertinent health information to our users. We plan to use this data to create and curate content for our users as well as provide it to health insurance companies, institutions, and pharmacies. With the goal of providing our users and their communities with the health resources they deserve from the health beneficiaries, educational hubs, and apothecaries that support them. Majority of or revenue at the start will be from social media ads. After we collect a statistically significant amount of user data, we will analyze it for trends and sell it to the aforementioned businesses. 

In the end, our users will gain culturally competent and relevant health information that is scientifically backed and provided to them by people who look like them, while our customers will gain insight into the communities they support on a daily basis, in order to provide our mutual users with the best health education and options available.

Our biggest areas of expenditure will be server space to maintain our site, advertising, and administrative costs if we add more people to our team. 

Not sure at this time.

We do not have any financial information at this time.