Social determinants of health

How it is used

A central idea in modern public health and WHO policy. People address, tackle or act on the social determinants of health; American texts often use the short form SDOH. A related phrase is 'the causes of the causes'.

Example sentences

1. You cannot reduce childhood asthma without looking at social determinants of health such as damp housing.

2. The new strategy asks every ministry to act on the social determinants of health.

Common collocations

• address the social determinants of health
• act on the social determinants
• structural determinants
• commercial determinants of health

Related terms

• health equityThe situation in which everyone has a fair chance to be as healthy as possible, with no avoidable or unfair differences in health between social groups.
• health inequalitiesDifferences in health, such as life expectancy or disease rates, between groups of people defined by income, area, ethnicity, gender or other social factors.
• socioeconomic statusA person's or group's position in society based on a combination of income, education and occupation, often used to compare health between social groups.
• social gradientThe pattern in which health gets steadily better at each step up the social ladder, so that not only the poorest but everyone below the top has worse health than those above them.

More terms: Social Determinants and Equity

• access to healthcare
• vulnerable groups
• food insecurity