Hospitals Spent $2.5 Billion On Social Determinant Programs From 2017 To 2019
Seventy-eight unique programs, involving 917 hospitals nationwide, spent $2.5 billion on programs focused on social determinants of health (SDOH) between January 1, 2017 and November 30, 2019. SDOH is defined as topics concerning economic stability (employment, poverty, housing instability, food insecurity); education (early childhood education and development, high school graduation, enrollment in higher education, language, literacy); social and community context (civic participation, discrimination, incarceration, social cohesion); health and health care (access to health care, access to primary care, health literacy); and neighborhood and built environment (access to foods that support healthy eating patterns, crime and violence, environmental conditions . . .