Are There Social Determinants of Health and Disease?

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (3x) ◽  
pp. S65-S73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald A. (Ronald Aaron) Thisted
Keyword(s):  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Health And Disease

scholarly journals Whither social determinants of health?

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fúlvio Borges Nedel ◽  
João Luiz Bastos
Keyword(s):  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Fundamental Understanding ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
Social Distribution ◽  
Historically Situated

This critical commentary extends the debate on social determinants of health and disease. Its main argument is that while further studies are unnecessary to demonstrate the fundamentally social distribution of health outcomes, extant analyses rarely engage with the fact that poverty and other forms of oppression are political choices made by societies, which are both contemporaneously contingent and historically situated. This view must guide research and debate in the area so that studies intending to bring injustice to light do not end up naturalizing it. Research based on this fundamental understanding may help to overcome the narrow scope of multicausal black box approaches, which do not analyze the interrelations among determinants and make only a limited contribution to the construction of healthy societies.

scholarly journals Importance of Social Determinants in Screening for Depression

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Califf ◽  
Celeste Wong ◽  
P. Murali Doraiswamy ◽  
David S. Hong ◽  
David P. Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Clinical Laboratory ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Health Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Demographic Groups ◽  
Patient Health ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Importance The most common screening tool for depression is the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Despite extensive research on the clinical and behavioral implications of the PHQ-9, data are limited on the relationship between PHQ-9 scores and social determinants of health and disease. Objective To assess the relationship between the PHQ-9 at intake and other measurements intended to assess social determinants of health. Design, Setting, and Participants Cross-sectional analyses of 2502 participants from the Baseline Health Study (BHS), a prospective cohort of adults selected to represent major demographic groups in the US; participants underwent deep phenotyping on demographic, socioeconomic, clinical, laboratory, functional, and imaging findings. Interventions None. Main Outcomes and Measures Cross-sectional measures of clinical and socioeconomic status (SES). Results In addition to a host of clinical and biological factors, higher PHQ-9 scores were associated with female sex, younger participants, people of color, and Hispanic ethnicity. Multiple measures of low SES, including less education, being unmarried, not currently working, and lack of insurance, were also associated with higher PHQ-9 scores across the entire spectrum of PHQ-9 scores. A summative score of SES, which was the 6th most predictive factor, was associated with higher PHQ-9 score after adjusting for 150 clinical, lab testing, and symptomatic characteristics. Conclusions and Relevance Our findings underscore that depression should be considered a comorbidity when social determinants of health are addressed, and both elements should be considered when designing appropriate interventions.

Addressing the Social Determinants of Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saty Satya-Murti ◽  
Jennifer Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Determinants Of Health ◽  
Medical Attention ◽  
Community Center ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social

The Los Angeles Plaza Community Center (PCC), an early twentieth-century Los Angeles community center and clinic, published El Mexicano, a quarterly newsletter, from 1913 to 1925. The newsletter’s reports reveal how the PCC combined walk-in medical visits with broader efforts to address the overall wellness of its attendees. Available records, some with occasional clinical details, reveal the general spectrum of illnesses treated over a twelve-year span. Placed in today’s context, the medical care given at this center was simple and minimal. The social support it provided, however, was multifaceted. The center’s caring extended beyond providing medical attention to helping with education, nutrition, employment, transportation, and moral support. Thus, the social determinants of health (SDH), a prominent concern of present-day public health, was a concept already realized and practiced by these early twentieth-century Los Angeles Plaza community leaders. Such practices, although not yet nominally identified as SDH, had their beginnings in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social activism movement aiming to mitigate the social ills and inequities of emerging industrial nations. The PCC was one of the pioneers in this effort. Its concerns and successes in this area were sophisticated enough to be comparable to our current intentions and aspirations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document