The world of U.S. healthcare may be slow in advancing health equity, but the movement is gaining popularity. Social determinants of health (SDOH) are more than a trending concept these days; providers are putting it into practice and seeing results. Geoffrey M. Roche, SVP, National Health Care Practice & Workforce Partnerships with Core Education PBC, joined host Brian Urban to share his thoughts on SDOH and how it can provide many benefits for community health.

CMS (The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) is keen to take on this approach, but Roche said there’s a lot of work to meet today’s needs. Still, states like Pennsylvania are adopting SDOH at a much faster pace. “In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we’ve been fortunate in the current administration to have taken many steps forward regarding social determinants of health and health equity,” Roche said. “In Pennsylvania, we do not have by statute an office of health equity in the Pennsylvania Department of Health, but we do by executive order.”

Roche said a tremendous effort through the PA Department of Human Services brings this approach to the Medicaid managed care population. “And we’ve seen the department of health do a lot of work with hospitals and health systems to think about what we do to address social determinants of health, and do it in a manner that advances health equity.”

Pennsylvania developed a health equity action team during the pandemic that now provides boots-on-the-ground reliable data and information to the department of health to aid in those equity efforts. This data helps drive new programs that address the needs of communities. “When Pennsylvania drilled into the data, what was really telling was we still saw significant health equity issues, particularly in social determinants of health, in areas of the Commonwealth that were redlined.”

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