Breaking the Code

As new technologies emerge with the promise of personalization, safety, or constant connection, some are beginning to feel surveilled, watched in the moments where they don’t want to be seen. In this episode we discuss the growing value of anonymity, allowing people to engage at a distance at first and building trust over time. This is a great listen for any brands looking to thoughtfully integrat...

Click here to read the team's whitepaper: "Where Culture Meets AI: Scaling the Human-Centered Healthcare Experience" As we continue growing our understanding of AI's role in our business, it's crucial to discuss why scale without cultural intelligence risks doing more harm than good. In this episode, we're joined by Eirasmin Lokpez-Cobo and Mark Makuch to discuss reac...

This Rare Disease Month, the team is shifting its focus to the caregivers.   Caregiving is often seen as the ultimate display of love. It's a role that needs more recognition, but when we start thinking about caregivers as heroes, we risk no longer seeing them as people who could need support from others. In this episode, Sonika and Gabe are joined by Raregivers' founder Cristol Barrett...

Every January, millions of us resolve to reset and become a better version of ourselves. But where did New Year’s resolutions come from, and why do they so rarely stick?  As the fervor behind the new year quiets, Sonika and Gabe take a moment to trace the evolution of the New Year’s resolution, from ancient Babylonian promises to the gods to today’s culture of self-optimization and burnout. They u...

In this episode, Sonika and Gabe explore how pain is experienced differently across bodies and interpreted differently in conversations, with a focus on people living with Sickle Cell Disease. This conversation dips into acute and chronic pain, highlighting the challenge health communicators face in bringing the unseen aspects of someone's pain to light.  This episode was recorded in October...

In Breaking the Code's 50th episode, we are joined by our 2025 summer intern, Gabriel Robinson (GR), not to be confused with Gabriel Allen-Cummings (GA). This conversation began because of GR's curiosity about social media being used for self-diagnosis, and it evolved to cover HCPs on social media, generational nuances in social media use, and the emergence of AI as a comprehensive careg...

"Ripped From The Headlines" is a new series for Breaking the Code, where Sonika and Gabe react to a news story with a medical anthropology lens. On this edition, they react to Anixa Biosciences' breast cancer vaccine completing phase one of clinical testing. The notion of a cancer vaccine sparked a variety of conversation topics from women's health to vaccine culture. If you lo...

Behavioral inertia has become a buzzword in marketing, often associated with the stubborn action (or inaction) of a target audience. As anthropologists, Sonika and Gabe are often approached with the challenge of designing interventions that break inertia; however, there's more to inertia than simply recognizing it and knowing how to overcome it. In this episode, they break down the emotional...

Thinking holistically is easy to say, but hard to do, especially when designing strategies to change behavior within a specific role like patient, HCP, or caregiver. In this episode, Sonika and Gabe unpack how they disrupt their own thinking to uncover culturally resonant insights and drive more impactful behavioral strategies.  Follow us on LinkedIn  

The biggest health story of the year has been how GLP-1s like Ozempic are reshaping everyday life. As the holidays approach, we take a closer look at an unexpected cultural shift—the shape of Santa Claus. For nearly a century, Santa has been celebrated as a holly jolly figure with a long white beard and a big round belly. But this year we've seen depictions of Santa hitting the gym, counting...

In this episode, we are joined by Eirásmin Lokpez-Cobo, EVP of Brand Strategy at República Havas Health, to dive into the insights from her team's recently published white paper, Equity in Action: Mapping the Multicultural Patient Journey for Inclusive Strategies (link below). This insightful paper sheds light on the systemic barriers and health-related behaviors that shape the experiences of...

Women's professional sports are "having a moment", but this did not happen in a vacuum nor did it happen overnight. In a highly anticipated episode (for us), we finally got a chance to sit down with Claire Knapp (CEO of Havas Lynx) and Denise Melone (Managing Director of Havas Life San Francisco) to discuss the implications of the growth of women's sports, both as a business an...

With the advent of GLP-1 drugs, it was only a matter of time before Brad and Gabriel dove into a discussion about this controversial drug class and the equally contentious disease, obesity. In this episode, they explore a range of topics—from the history of obesity and its recognition as a disease to how GLP-1s like Ozempic are influencing the conversation around the legitimacy and stigma of obesi...

Our fascination with neurodivergence continues as we are joined by PsyD, Dr. Matt Zakreski to breakdown the semantics of giftedness, and inclusive design for neurodivergent people in a variety of public spaces. The term "gifted" was of particular interest of us and our guest because at one point in each of our lives we had been called out of the classroom to take an exam that would ultim...

In this episode, recorded right before the Labor Day weekend, Brad and Gabe have one thing on their minds... barbecuing! More specifically, they're thinking about barbecuing as a ritual, a set of behaviors with rules, inversions of norms, specific settings and a meaning that goes beyond its function. In health, rituals are overlooked, but they're are a desired part of the human experienc...

The term "neurodiversity," introduced 25 years ago by autistic Australian sociologist Judy Singer, marked a milestone in our understanding of autism and the appreciation of "difference, not deficit" in how brains work. More than a buzzword, neurodiversity describes a growing population whose brains work differently from the "neurotypical," and whose historic separatio...

A cancer diagnosis is a "moment of truth" that brings an undeniable shift to someone's identity. Faced with one's own mortality, a concerted effort may be required to overcome the dissonance between "who I was" and "who I am now". When communicating to patients diagnosed with cancer, we often attempt to address this new-found perspective by creating "he...

Correction: In this episode, we mention that Anna Calix had a miscarriage. Anna actually had a 40 week stillbirth. Miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) is a fetal demise in utero at less than 20 weeks of pregnancy, and stillbirth (fetal death) is a spontaneous fetal demise in utero at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. The two have very different experiences medically, legally, logistically, and sociall...

In this episode, Brad and Gabe delve into the US Surgeon General's proposal to introduce warning labels on social media platforms, aimed at highlighting their impact on young people's mental health. In the US, the surgeon general is seen as a moral authority who looks at social issues through a health-first lens from the dangers of social media to gun violence.  There's a lot to dis...

 In this episode, we’re joined by Eve McDavid and Dr. Onyinye Balogun, founders of Mission Driven Tech, a Cervical Cancer innovation company. Their story is an inspirational application of Breaking the Code's themes of inclusive design, varied expressions of pain, and uncomfortable conversations that save lives. Our discussion delves into women's health and cervical cancer, highlighting...

In a world of ubiquitous marketing, figuring out what supports a "healthy lifestyle" can be challenging. Marketers have picked up on the cultural trend towards wellness branding, and are enthusiastically, if somewhat disingenuously, leaning into claims that are technically true but not very helpful--"no added sugar", for example, is true, but irrelevant, for a product that has...

As people become more conscious and more knowledgeable about their health, it's on brands and health institutions to become more intimately aware of their consumer's (or patient's) health needs and goals. Someone who "does their own research" isn't operating in a silo - they still rely on the opinions of others, friends, influencers, health professionals and brands, t...

In honor of Parkinson's awareness month, we're joined by Howard Lenn, EVP, Executive Creative Director at Havas Health Plus, to discuss his team's approach to the work on the "The Kama Sutra of Parkinson's", ParkinSex. Couples that include someone with Parkinson's are more likely to separate than couples that don't. Howard talks about the massive strain Park...

Something that has fascinated us recently is the role culture plays in the emotional aspects of storytelling. The emotional response, its justification and the words used to describe it all are heavily influenced by an individual's identity and how they've learned to express themselves. In this episode, we discuss some of the culture differences when it comes to talking about pain and th...

Too often in our industry, when we say "healthcare professional" what we really mean is ONE healthcare profession, the prescribing Medical Doctor. However, nursing is and always has been a part of the healthcare professional team, and today more than ever the roles nurses play in providing care are exactly those we cannot do without. Nursing is impossible to do remotely; they are the han...