Community-level actions on the social determinants of health: A typology for hospitals

Health in the United States is not equally distributed; there is a 15-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest 1 percent of Americans. There is clear evidence that health and health inequities are largely determined by the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work, and age—the social determinants of health (SDOH). These include education, employment, income, and housing and are in turn shaped by systems that maintain unequal power and privilege, including institutional and structural racism. (author introduction)