CVS Health’s Theresa Juday on How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Ameliorate Health Disparities

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), particularly digital CBT, has the potential to address health disparities prevalent in underserved communities nationwide, said Theresa Juday, RPh, director, Specialty Product Development, CVS Health.

Transcript

What impact may the evolution of CBT capabilities have on patient outcomes?

Not just around CBT, but in a more broader health care scope where I think for CBT or digital CBT in particular, it's important to think about how this helps to address a very important area of health care and one that we have seen conversations emerge easily in the last 5 years, and that is how we help address health disparities.

So from a digital perspective in particular, digital CBT can help to do that as well. So I talked a little bit more about addressing patients who have transportation issues or rural populations, populations where language is a barrier, that is something that all leads to health disparities. Also, people of color. The stigma around cognitive behavioral therapy as a whole in populations of color does exist, and digital CBT can help to address that concern as well.

Again, bringing it in house, they can do it in the comfort of their own home. They can make it a little bit more anonymous while still accessing the care that they need. Looking at how CBT and particularly digital CBT can not only improve health outcomes, but address some of those health disparity barriers that exist might be an important piece to the puzzle.