Health Disparities and Social Determinants of Health

What Are Health Disparities?

Health disparities are differences in overall health or unequal burden of disease and/or health outcomes between populations that are attributable to social, political, economic, and environmental factors.

What are social determinants of health, social risk factors, and social needs?

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), Social Risk Factors, and Social Needs are all separate concepts that often are conflated. All three contribute to health disparities, and addressing all three is critical to advancing health equity.

1) Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

SDOH ¹ are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, as well as the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life, including economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, and political systems.

Economic Stability

Employment
Income
Expenses
Debt
Medical Bills
Support

Neighborhood and Physical Environment

Housing
Transportation
Safety
Parks
Playgrounds
Walkability
Zip Code/Geography

Education

Literacy
Language
Early Childhood Education
Vocational Training
Higher Education

Food

Hunger
Access to Healthy Options

Community and Social Context

Social Integration
Support Systems
Community Engagement
Discrimination
Stress

Health Care System

Health Coverage
Provider Availability
Provider Linguistic and Cultural Competency
Quality of Care

Health Outcomes
Mortality, Morbidity, Life Expectancy, Health Care Expenditures, Health Status, Functional Limitations

2) Social Risk Factors:

Social risk factors² are defined as the adverse social conditions associated with poor health, such as food insecurity and housing instability.

3) Social Needs:

This refers to the individual material resources and psychosocial circumstances required for long-term physical and mental health and well-being. Material circumstances describe physical living and working conditions and include factors such as housing, food, water, air, sanitation. Psychosocial circumstances include stressors such as negative life events, stressful living circumstances, and (lack of) social support.³

Why SDOH, Social Risk Factors and Social Needs are Important to Health Disparities and Health Equity.

Without addressing these “social” factors, health disparities will continue to persist. Health care does not exist in a vacuum. Differences in the overall health of individuals and communities are influenced by many factors outside of our health system walls, including SDOH, social risk factors, and social needs, and thus differences in overall health or burdens of disease cannot be improved by only addressing the quality or quantity of health care individuals receive.

Graphic source: https://www.barhii.org/barhii-framework

What We Are Doing

What you can do

Learn about the factors that inﬂuence patients’ health outside of health system walls.

Help connect patients to people who can provide resources to help with social needs, including social workers, care managers and clinical resource coordinators.