Social Determinants of Health
An integral part of delivering high-quality healthcare is understanding the social determinants of health (SDOH) of patients and of communities in which healthcare is provided. The World Health Organization defines SDOH as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age.
SDOH, although experienced by individuals, exist at the community level. Healthcare systems that learn about the communities their patients live in, and the community-level barriers members can face to becoming and staying healthy, can better adapt their recommendations to people’s lives. SDOH can be categorized into five key areas:
- Social context: (e.g., demographics, social networks and supports).
- Economic context (e.g., employment, income, poverty).
- Education (e.g., quality of day care, schools, and adult education).
- Physical infrastructure (e.g., housing, transportation, workplace safety).
- Healthcare context (e.g., access to high-quality care; access to insurance).
AHRQ has extensive data resources that researchers can use to study the relationships between health, SDOH, and healthcare. One of the newer resources is the Social Determinants of Health Database, which was created under a project funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Trust Fund.
The SDOH database is curated from existing Federal datasets and other publicly available data sources. The purpose of these files is to make it easier to find a range of well-documented, readily linkable SDOH variables across domains without having to access multiple source files, facilitating SDOH research and analysis. Variables in the files correspond to the five key SDOH areas. The files can be linked to other data by geography. Data are available at the county, ZIP Code, and census tract levels.
More information about SDOH, as well as research, tools, resources, and data related to SDOH, is available on AHRQ’s Social Determinants of Health website.
