Social Determinants of Health: How Healthcare is Improving Understanding of Diverse Patients

People are the product of their environment — beyond attitudes, perceptions, personalities and skills, physical manifestations also impact their health and wellness. But for too long, medical practitioners have done little to account for these social and environmental factors that influence our health.

In recent years, as technology has become more ubiquitous in healthcare, as in all other areas of modern life, healthcare has taken a more progressive approach. Data collected from patients, medical devices and mobile health applications yield greater insight into the factors that drive health on a population level. This analysis is often referred to as Social Determinants of Health (SDoH), and it’s something that remains an area of opportunity and exploration in healthcare.

COVID-19 has provided yet another opportunity to examine how SDoH can be applied to help improve care outcomes for certain communities. However, healthcare’s adoption and implementation of technology do not follow a similar path or timeline as other industries; things move slower as the challenges often involve someone’s life.

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