Social Determinants of Health Data for Health Analytics

This chapter describes the various datasets available for health analytics that utilize social determinants of health (SDOH). We provide an overview of what SDOH is, and the differences between individual SDOH elements and neighborhood-level SDOH elements. We also describe how SDOH is collected in the electronic health records (EHRs) during routine clinical care and the inadequate capture of SDOH currently. Because of the inadequate capture of SDOH during routine clinical care, proxies are commonly used in research for SDOH. We discuss common proxies for a number of different elements within SDOH and how those proxies using census-tract information from the Census or the American Community Survey (ACS) can help to address certain SDOH elements. We also describe how some SDOH are lifestyle choices, such as tobacco and alcohol use, which are harder to capture using census-tract-level proxies and require more guided clinical diligence to appropriately capture during clinic visits. Overviews of common datasets from the Government and non-Government sources for SDOH census-tract-level information are provided and discussed. We also discuss how neighborhood and county-level SDOH analysis can shed light on patient behavior in hospital settings and identify areas where increased support is needed. We illustrate with in-chapter exercises and end-of-chapter problems how to identify different community environment exposures using ACS and how that can be correlated with health outcomes in the literature. After reading this chapter, you should be able to confidently answer the following questions: