HealthIT Answers June 29, 2021
By Jawanna Henry and Samantha Meklir, ONC
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Addressing inequities in these conditions, driven in large part due to the root causes of poverty and racism, can be supported in part through the collection, documentation, reporting, access and use of SDOH data. This data can be used to help identify and eliminate health disparities and to improve health outcomes at an individual and population level.
ONC focuses on four key areas with respect to how health IT can be used to help achieve this: standards and data;...