A New Framework for Reducing Healthcare Disparities

Despite decades of effort to combat inequalities in health care in the United States through programs and policies targeting the social determinants of health, disparities persist in racial, sex, socioeconomic and geographic lines. Systematic examinations for hospital systems and programs to combat social determinants of health (SDOH) have revealed unsatisfactory progress. Some attribute the slow progression to insufficient normalization and sharing of learning between communities, or to underinvestment in data and SDOH measurement.