Social Determinants of Health Education: A Call to Action

To the Editor: The article entitled "Teaching the Social Determinants of Health: A Path to Equity or a Road to Nowhere?"1 raises important questions for medical educators and serves as a call to action to establish meaningful outcomes and include key structural influences. Evaluating changes in learner actions and patient outcomes is imperative.2 In our work, social determinants of health (SDOH) training has led to increased documentation of risk within the electronic health record,3 increased reports by parents of SDOH-related risks,4 and increased interventions for families with infants identified as food insecure.5 As a community of medical educators, we need to commit to meaningful, rigorous evaluation that affects learners' practices and patient outcomes. Similarly, a focus toward action is critical. Interdisciplinary education holds promise as a means through which structural factors influencing SDOH and inequities can be taught. One example includes co-leading educational initiatives with advocates from medical-legal partnerships, educators from local schools, community leaders, and families. Such interdisciplinary programs help shape the message, bring learners closer to the context where risks emerge, and foster collaboration with key change agents. The focus on context and action also aligns with recent recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics,6 as well as with that organization's recently published curriculum, which has expanded SDOH teaching to include the social context of poverty.7 We, health professions educators, have not gone far enough in SDOH education. Still, we are optimistic that with expanded rigor in the design and evaluation of curricula, and with teaching that pushes us to move rapidly from assessment to action, we will create a generation of physicians armed and activated to change the status quo. Melissa Klein, MD, MEdAssociate professor of pediatrics, Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6802-1954; [email protected] Andrew F. Beck, MD, MPHAssistant professor of pediatrics, Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4262-663X.