Improving health requires understanding and addressing the underlying health drivers or factors that affect health. These health drivers include, biological factors (e.g., genetic susceptibility, tumor biology, and physiologic processes), demographics (e.g., age, sex, race/ethnicity), behavioral factors (e.g., tobacco use, diet, physical activity), environmental factors (e.g., geographical, built environment, place) and structural influences (e.g., exposures, resource access), and health care factors (e.g., access and quality of care).
Health disparities are the measurable outcomes or differences in cancer-related health often linked to avoidable and unfair social, economic, or environmental disadvantages, which include incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and survivorship differences, observed across population groups. Disparities are often more pronounced among populations that experience greater challenges to achieving optimal health.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, learn, work, play, live, and age, and the wider set of structural factors influencing the conditions of daily life. These conditions are shaped by social, economic, and legal systems, policies, and forces that govern the distribution of opportunities, resources, and power in society. SDOH are key drivers of health disparities and interact with the biological, behavioral, environmental, and health care factors that shape cancer outcomes across population groups.
Addressing health drivers and reducing and eliminating health disparities to achieve optimal health for all requires ongoing sustained efforts to address the mechanisms that are multifactorial and multilevel which include interactions among these drivers. Our goal is to achieve the highest level of health for all by addressing the underlying mechanisms that affect health through intervention research that addresses multifactorial and multilevel influences, collaboration across sectors, and meaningful community engagement.
Social Determinants of Health