Social Determinants of Health

Earlier this week the NY Times 'Opinionator' published a nice blog post on Health Leads, a program that addresses the social determinants of health and was started at Boston Medical Center in the 1990s. Staffed by volunteer college students, Health Leads works with low-income patients seeking medical care to help fill "prescriptions" to remedy other (non-medical) issues that may be causing ongoing health problems.  Student volunteers help to link patients up with housing subsidies, utility payment programs, food assistance, and other social services.


The post is at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/treating-the-cause-.... View a recent Center for Housing Policy Insights brief summarizing research on the impacts of affordable housing on health at http://www.nhc.org/media/files/Insights_HousingAndHealthBrief.pdf.