Social Determinants Today, Social Determinants Tomorrow

Discussion about how social factors affect health care costs continues to amplify—and the numbers are pretty clear. Low-income consumers—who often have more negative social determinants of health—are higher utilizers of acute care services; account for the majority of both preventable hospitalizations and readmissions; have higher rates of smoking and obesity; and have shorter life spans (see Social Determinants, Health Care Outcomes, & Health Care Costs - A Look At The Numbers).

As Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D., then commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS), explained in his keynote address . . .