Social Determinants of Health

Overview: Explore how to incorporate social determinants of health (SDOH) concepts into digital health systems. SDOH are the social and economic factors that have an influence on a person's health. Inequities occur when a person experiences poorer outcomes and quality of care based on who they are, where they live or what they have. The working group will focus on how the collection, use and sharing of SDOH data within digital health systems can address these inequities.

Current Focus: The Infoway SDOH working group is looking at the three domains of racism and discrimination, material hardship and healthcare access. We are examining what existing measures exist within these three domain areas and plan to submit a summary document to the GRAVITY project later in the year. Our two aims are to:

1) bring a Canadian perspective to the GRAVITY project, as they will be focusing on the domains of racism and discrimination and healthcare access later in the year; and

2) see how looking across these three domains can add an intersectional approach to the use of standards.

Scope: For this working group, we will apply a strengths-based approach in developing guiding principles on how to proceed in the implementation of SDOH concepts into digital health systems. The scope will include examining current strategies and equitable best practices for:

• Identifying the ways to collect and use SDOH data;
• Choosing the actions to address inequities and measuring the impact of these actions; and
• Ensuring appropriate and safe collection, storage and use of SDOH data.

Join the monthly working group meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at 12 noon ET.

Upcoming events:

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