Tools for Putting Social Determinants of Health into Action

Date of Review: March, 2021

This resource provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a collection of resources for practitioners to enhance their understanding of social determinants of health (SoDH) and health inequities. The focus of this collection of resources is to enable practitioners to take action to address SoDH and health inequities within their patient population or within the community context. Resources cover a variety of topics, including how the ten essential health services serve as a framework to address SoDH and health inequities at both national and local levels. Additionally, methods and strategies to address SDoH with patient populations who are experiencing specific health conditions such as cancer, asthma, diabetes, HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs, TB and obesity are provided, in addition to guides outlining specific actions practitioners can take to advance health equity. Finally, the collection provides resources to address environmental factors which impact health, approaches to enhance child and school health, as well as datasets pertaining to social determinants of health at the local level. This collection of resources would be appropriate for clinicians seeking to address the SoDH for patients in their practice and could be included in clinic-based curricula during the clinical years or as a resource for teaching students about the physician’s role in impacting SDOH in the preclinical years. We have used this tool in our community health module and have identified it as a resource for students to use when developing their hypothetical community health proposal. —Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD, NCEAS