Social Determinants of Health Resources

AHRQ has a wide variety of resources related to social determinants of health (SDOH). Visit:

• Health Systems Research: Learn about AHRQ research related to SDOH and find resources for researchers.
• Practice Improvement: Find tools that health systems can use to address SDOH.
• Data and Analytics: Discover AHRQ datasets that can be used for SDOH research and the reports, chartbooks, and brief data analyses related to SDOH that AHRQ publishes.
• Poverty and Access to Internet, by County: View an interactive data visualization that uses data from AHRQ's SDOH database.

AHRQ participates in two communities that use data and research to address SDOH.

• The Gravity Project, a new community-led effort to develop an HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) implementation guide for SDOH data and more comprehensive SDOH terminology.
• Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN), which advances high-quality research on healthcare sector strategies to improve social conditions.

Additional HHS SDOH Resources

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recognizes the critical role that social determinants play in health, and has numerous resources to facilitate efforts to address SDOH on multiple fronts.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention SDOH Website
• Healthy People 2030 HHS Value Workgroup / SDOH Subgroup (SDOH cross-HHS coordination)
• Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Uniform Data System Mapper
• HRSA Training and Technical Assistance Hub’s Social Determinants of Health Resources

Speeches and Blogs

• The Root of the Problem: America's Social Determinants of Health: Speech by Alex M. Azar II J.D., former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Hatch Foundation for Civility and Solutions, November 14, 2018, Washington, D.C.
• AHRQ's Commitment to Meeting Unmet Needs in the Healthcare System Blog by Gopal Khanna, M.B.A., former Director of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, February 1, 2019.
• Actively Addressing Social Determinants of Health will Help Us Achieve Health Equity: Blog by Cara James Ph.D., Director,  CMS Office of Minority Health, April 26, 2019.
• AHRQ Keeps Working To Reduce Health Disparities: Blog by Francis Chesley, M.D., Director, AHRQ Office of Extramural Research, Education and Priority Populations, April 24, 2018.
• From Hype to Reality: How Artificial Intelligence Can Transform Health and Healthcare: Blog by Teresa Zayas Cabán Ph.D., Kevin J. Chaney, Chris Dymek Ed.D., and Michael Painter M.D. J.D., January 17, 2018.