Health institutions, such as hospitals and hospital systems, are investing in programs
to address upstream drivers of health. These drivers include the macrolevel forces
that comprise social-structural influences on health institutions; government policies;
and the social, physical, economic, and environmental factors that affect health.
Historically, health institutions have mostly invested in mitigating the harmful aspects
of social determinants of health—the most publicized upstream driver of health—for
their patients. From 2017 to 2019, they collectively spent $2.5 billion on programs
targeting the social determinants of health.
1
Although only a tiny fraction of the $100 billion in profit that was generated by
U.S. hospitals in 2019,
2
investments in this area are significant given that social, economic, and environmental
factors account for 80% of a person's modifiable contributors to health outcomes.
AHA hospital statistics. AHA Data. https://guide.prod.iam.aha.org/stats/. Updated 2022. Accessed April 4, 2022.
3
Health institution investment and activity in the political determinants of health
(PDoH), an even more fundamental and perhaps impactful driver of health, are therefore
critical to understand.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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REFERENCES
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Washington S 200. A 501 tax-exempt, NW charitable organization; 1300 LS. Top Spenders. Opensecrets. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cycle=2019. Accessed April 4, 2022.
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Voting and registration in the election of November 2020. United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-585.html. Updated October 8, 2021. Accessed January 5, 2022.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: July 08, 2022
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© 2022 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
