João Abreu
Brazil impressively digitized the health records for all 150M of its citizens. But, even armed with that data, preventive care teams still miss million of people because they lack the systems to identify and reach the highest-priority patients.
The Idea
Hypertargeting for Preventative Healthcare
Organization
Organization
ImpulsoGov
The Mission
Reduce preventable deaths and suffering.
How It Works
ImpulsoGov uses software to identify the highest-priority patients from digitzed health records—the patients overdue for screenings, that missed appointments, or are unvaccinated. Community health workers receive prioritized lists for door-to-door visits, while municipalities send hypertargeted WhatsApp and SMS nudges to get people into care before conditions worsen.
The Dream
Private tech companies sell hypertargeting software to governments around the world that they embed into digitized primary healthcare systems, so that they can reach the highest-priority patients before conditions become emergencies.
Why We Picked João
João has worked at the intersection of government, policy, and data for over a decade—from structuring billion-dollar partnerships at São Paulo City Hall to earning his Harvard MPA/ID. ImpulsoGov now supports 300+ municipalities covering ~19M people, with 1,400 more wait-listed. Their diff-in-diff analysis shows statistically significant results across all seven preventive care indicators, generating 134,000+ additional health appointments. João's a whiz at bringing data to life, and he's building the infrastructure for hypertargeting to become standard across digitized health systems globally.
