Cindy Throop, MSW

I am a sociologist and structural social worker specializing in social inequality. I came of age professionally around the time the US was dismantling its safety net through a major overhaul of the social welfare system in 1996. Early on, I did child and family welfare policy, research, and advocacy work at the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, DC, then a small non-profit in Flint, Michigan. After that, my career began to shift to the health care space. A couple decades later, I find myself wondering why health care stakeholders do not explicitly acknowledge the impact of 1996 welfare reform legislation on current health care reform efforts.

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Currently, the critical and systems-level viewpoints of sociology and structural social work are substantially underrepresented in the U.S. and health care stakeholders are not adequately leveraging the knowledge available in these and related fields to address “social determinants of health.” Addressing unmet social welfare policy and program needs downstream through a largely profitable health care system or an under-resourced public health system will not address the underlying structural systems that create and perpetuate social, economic, and other types of interrelated inequality. 

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There is a significant risk of perpetuating structural inequality if other sources of knowledge and experience continue to be sidelined as funds are invested in addressing these issues through the limited perspectives of "social determinants of health" and even “information technology”. I am interested in leveraging multidisciplinary knowledge, critical and systems thinking approaches, and sometimes humor to frame critical conversations in a more strategic manner. I would like to see us collectively affect meaningful change in health care and social service delivery more effectively and efficiently in the long term.