What Are Social Determinants of Health?

There’s a new hot-button topic in the field of poverty prevention: social determinants of health. What does it mean and why does it matter?

Social determinants of health are factors of our physical, emotional and social environment that have key impacts on our health. This means everything from culture to quality of job training to mental health to weight to social support contributes to a person’s overall health. In fact, 80% of our health outcomes are determined by our environment

So clearly, the best way to help low-income individuals is to change their environment. Which is easier said than done. However, there are a few places – like improving the physical home environme