The difficulty of addressing social needs through health care alone

While there is widespread awareness of the negative impacts of social determinants of health (SDOH) on patient populations and strong belief by health care providers that their organizations should do more, achieving actual progress remains elusive. This is because there are no easy solutions due to the breadth and complexity of the issues, and the reality that most care delivery organizations lack the expertise and resources to shoulder the burden alone.

This article presents some of the leading takeaways from a December 2022 survey of NEJM Catalyst Insights Council members, who are clinicians, clinical leaders, and executives at organizations around the world that are directly involved in care delivery. Fully 81% of respondents globally say it is very important or extremely important to them personally that their organization works to address patients’ SDOH, and strong majorities of respondents say that health care organizations should take responsibility for addressing a range of social needs.