Social Determinants of Health

Goal: Achieve health equity by addressing social determinants of health and structural/system level inequities.

Strategy Description: The social determinants of health are the most significant drivers of differences in health outcomes (i.e., health disparities) and health inequities in the District of Columbia. Neighborhoods and communities with poor social determinants indicators typically have the worst health outcomes. Examples of social determinants of health include: socioeconomic conditions, social norms and attitudes, access to educational, economic, and job opportunities, access to health care services, quality of education and job training, racial segregation, exposure to crime, violence, and social disorder, language/literacy, and culture. SDH-1: increase multi-sector public, private and non-profit partnerships to further population health improvement through a coordinated focus on social determinants of health and health equity. MICH-2: Increase minimum wage to living wage.  SDH-4: Support mixed-income development and the production of affordable working and living space.

Level of Change: Systems

Primary Focus Area:

Data Category Tag: Social Determinants of Health

Estimated Implementation Date: 2010-04-01

Estimated Completion Date: 2020-01-01

Estimated Ease of Implementation: Very Hard

Estimated Cost of Implementation: High

Potential Community Benefit: Very High

Research: Social and structural determinants of health play a larger role in our health outcomes than any other individual factor. Focusing our efforts in this area has been proven to create the largest impact on population health improvement.