Quantifying Health Systems’ Investment In Social Determinants Of Health, By Sector, 2017–19

Abstract

The past decade has seen a growing recognition of the importance of social determinants of health for health outcomes. However, the degree to which US health systems are directly investing in community programs to address social determinants of health as opposed to screening and referral is uncertain. We searched for all public announcements of new programs involving direct financial investments in social determinants of health by US health systems from January 1, 2017, to November 30, 2019. We identified seventy-eight unique programs involving fifty-seven health systems that collectively included 917 hospitals. The programs involved at least $2.5 billion of health system funds, of which $1.6 billion in fifty-two programs was specifically committed to housing-focused interventions. Additional focus areas were employment (twenty-eight programs, $1.1 billion), education (fourteen programs, $476.4 million), food security (twenty-five programs, $294.2 million), social and community context (thirteen programs, $253.1 million), and transportation (six programs, $32 million). Health systems are making sizable investments in social determinants of health.

Assessment of Social Risk Factors and Interest in Receiving Health Care–Based Social Assistance Among Adult Patients and Adult Caregivers of Pediatric Patients

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Global COVID-19 spread: socioeconomic determinants and lessons for future pandemics

“…The WHO [9] classifies the social determinants of health into the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live and age; and the wider forces and systems that define the conditions of their daily life. In today's literature, social aspects of health explain substantially more of health outcome changes than simply medical care [10,11].…”

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