Social Determinants

It is the intention of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Office of Community Service Programs to offer learning opportunities to medical students to help advance the transformation of our institution from a medical school to an integrated school of medicine and public health.

It has been noted by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (World Health Organization: Commission on Social Determinants of Health, Interim Statement, 2007) that true improvement in health equity demands more than disease control and medical care - it will require the empowerment of individuals along three interconnected dimensions: material, psychosocial and political.

Public heath work in Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand stresses the importance of addressing social determinants of health. These efforts have begun to influence policy and practice in the United States.

Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states, "One major task that CDC is intending to address is making sure that we invest the same kind of intense resources into keeping people healthier or helping them return to a state of health and low vulnerability as we do to disease care and end of life care."

Medical students are learning how to be health care providers, but early on in their training perhaps the most important contributions they can make to improving health can be found in the upstream factors that are strongly linked to health outcomes.

Education, opportunity, literacy, capacity, affordable access to healthy foods, safe places to live, work and exercise all figure prominently in health outcomes.

Medical student service activities include public education, K-12 programs, health promotion programs, developing individual and community capacity, mentoring, health care access screenings, food pantry assistance and much more.

Students develop a stronger understanding of barriers to health faced by people living in poverty, challenges posed by the absence of hope and the consequences of difficult choices based on limited resources.