Prioritizing research on social determinants of health—“yes, and…”

For decades, suboptimal and declining population health and persistent health disparities for most conditions in the US have been well demonstrated. Moreover, the major health advances of the last century have not resulted in widespread uptake or resulted in equitable outcomes for all individuals in the US. We have learned that the ultimate success of our work in the laboratory, hospital, and clinic will only go so far if we are not attentive to what is happening around the home, on the job, and at the playground. Social determinants of health (SDOH)—the various conditions in which people live and structural factors that shape those conditions—are critically important to health outcomes. Despite the relevance of SDOH, we as a research community are not responding to this potential as we should be, in terms of the scope of our work or the interventions we are testing.