Health

In May 2018, Kaiser Permanente, the largest private integrated care system in the US, announced that it would invest $200 million through its Thriving Communities Fund to address the affordable housing crisis in California’s Bay Area.

How do you fix health inequity in the United States? The education and health-care communities as well as policymakers must consider what are known as the social determinants of health as an integral part of solving this dilemma.

A decade from now, most middle-income seniors will not be able to pay the rising costs of independent or assisted living.

Where you live is linked to how healthy you are.Sadly, U.S. Latino communities are marked by lower-quality, unaffordable housing, as well as high risk for eviction and displacement. This contributes to health inequities in this population.

Recent research has begun to focus on the impact of housing instability, in its many forms, on child health and development.

The U.S. economy is enjoying nearly a decade of expansion since the Great Recession. Yet food insecurity -- a lack of money or resources to secure enough to eat -- still grips almost one in eight Americans. That's roughly 40 million people.

Local health care providers say they often struggle to address an individual’s needs outside the clinic, such as access to housing and transportation.

Research shows that clinical care is only one factor that impacts population health and that a collection of other factors – including the natural and built environment where people live, education economic stability, food, and community and social context – grouped under the term social determinant

This environmental scan, conducted by AcademyHealth with support from the Kresge Foundation, provides an overview of the technology behind emerging multi-sector initiatives to address social determinants of health.

Over the past several years, a dizzying array of new technology platforms have emerged with the shared aim of enabling health care organizations to more easily identify and refer patients to social service organizations.