Social Determinants of Health

Know the definition of social determinants

Understand the importance of why social determinants affect the work we do

Become aware of efforts in the state that address social determinants and HIV

Objectives of this presentation

“Social justice is a matter of life and death.”

World Health Organization

The economic and social conditions that shape the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole.

Social determinants take into account the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at a global, national and local levels.

What are social determinants?

Examples of social determinants

Examples of social determinants

Examples of social determinants

Examples of social determinants

Lists of Social Determinants

From World Health Organization

From Social Determinants of Health National Conference

Income/Social Status Social Support Networks Education/Literacy Social Environment Physical Environment Life/Coping Skills Personal Health Practices Child Development Gender Culture

Early Life Education Employment/Work

Conditions Food Security Gender Health Care Services Housing Income and its Distribution Social Safety Net Social Exclusion Unemployment/ Employment Security

Lifestyle choices vs Social Determinants

Traditional Advice Social Determinants

1. Don't smoke. If you can, stop. If you can't, cut down.

2. Follow a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables.

3. Keep physically active. 4. Manage stress by, for example, talking

things through and making time to relax. 5. If you drink alcohol, do so in

moderation. 6. Cover up in the sun, and protect

children from sunburn. 7. Practice safer sex. 8. Take up cancer-screening opportunities. 9. Be safe on the roads: follow the

Highway Code. 10. Learn the First Aid ABCs: airways,

breathing, circulation.

1. Don't be poor. If you can, stop. If you can't, try not to be poor for long.

2. Don't have poor parents. 3. Own a car. 4. Don't work in a stressful, low-paid

manual job. 5. Don't live in damp, low-quality housing. 6. Be able to afford to go on a foreign

holiday and sunbathe. 7. Practice not losing your job and don't

become unemployed. 8. Take up all benefits you are entitled to,

if you are unemployed, retired or sick or disabled.

9. Don't live next to a busy major road or near a polluting factory.

10. Learn how to fill in the complex housing benefit/asylum application forms before you become homeless and destitute.

By addressing social determinants of health, we don’t “band-aid” solutions for clients.

We utilize a holistic approach to care and prevention.

We challenge long-standing paradigms in healthcare and social work that continue to instigate HIV stigma for clients and our communities.

We consider root causes for HIV risk and can create programming to address these causes.

So why does this apply to HIV Care?

Efforts to address social determinants in Iowa

NARC to include social determinants in work plan and share research during May meeting.

Future collaboration between NARC and QUAC to look at CareWare data to identify trends among clients and possibly ask more in-depth questions in assessment and client survey.

REHD to look at the intersections of race, ethnicity and gender with HIV risk/access to care.

Speakers will be present at the 2010 Iowa HIV, STD, and Hepatitis Conference to discuss social determinants.

Work is currently being done in the CPG to research social determinants and consider their effects on prioritization and programming.

World Health Organization. (2008). Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/

Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. (2008). Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Evans, R. G., Barer, M. L., & Marmor, T. R. (1994). Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not?: The Determinants of Health of Populations. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

L. Donaldson, Ten Tips for Better Health (London: Stationary Office, 1999).

Information gathered from

Contact Info

Rhea Van BrocklinAIDS Project of Central Iowa711 E. 2nd StDes Moines, IA 50309515-284-0245 rheav@aidsprojectci.org