#SaludTues Tweetchat 6/4: Moving Beyond Social Needs to Address Social Determinants of Health

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Inequities in health arise from social and structural inequities and the policies, laws, and culture that keep them in place.

To address inequities that affect health, it is important to make the distinction between individual-level (midstream) interventions to address “social needs,” and community-level (upstream) interventions to address “social determinants.”

Individual-level efforts to address social needs are necessary, but not enough. Characterizing these interventions as efforts to address social determinants of health conveys a false sense of progress.

“If we, even inadvertently, imply that the social determinants of health can be solved by offering Uber rides to individual patients or by deploying community health navigators, it will be challenging, if not impossible, for public health advocates to make the case for proven policies like alcohol sales control, complete streets, and healthy food procurement,” according to a de Beaumont Foundation blog post by Brian Castrucci and John Auerbach, which inspired this Tweetchat.

We need policy changes that target social determinants of health.

“This may seem like semantics, but when we use [social determinants] too broadly, we risk losing the specificity needed when calling on partners to make far-reaching social change, and we weaken our ability to implement the community-level efforts necessary to improve community health,” according to Castrucci and Auerbach.

Join #SaludTues on June 4, 2019, at 1 p.m. ET to tweet about why it is so important to move beyond midstream efforts addressing individual social needs to upstream efforts addressing social determinants of health.

• WHAT: #SaludTuesTweetchat: “Moving Beyond Social Needs to Address Social Determinants of Health”
• TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET, Tuesday, June 4, 2019
• WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
• HOST: @SaludAmerica
• CO-HOSTS: @deBeaumontFndtn (de Beaumont Foundation), @BrianCCastrucci (Brian C. Castrucci, DrPH)
• OPTIONAL HASHTAGS: #SDOH

We’ll open the floor to historical facts, data and your stories and experiences as we explore:

• The difference between meeting individual social needs and addressing social determinants of health;
• Why it so important to move beyond midstream efforts addressing individual social needs to upstream efforts addressing social determinants of health; and
• How to make the case for upstream efforts to address social determinants of health.

Be sure to use the hashtag #SaludTues to follow the conversation on Twitter and share your strategies, stories, and resources that improve the social determinants of health for Latino and all people.

Click here to learn about the Salud America! #SaludTues tweetchats, see upcoming and past tweetchats, and see how you can get involved.