The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association's Committee on Clinical Data Standards has published guidance on the social determinants of health faced by cardiology patients. With clear definitions, these determinants can more easily be incorporated into clinical practice, the committee said in the report published Aug. 26 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
One of the goals for clinical data standards is to "establish a consistent, interoperable and universal clinical vocabulary as a foundation for clinical care and research," the report authors said.
SDOH have been found to affect health outcomes, risks and quality of life for patients undergoing cardiac care and can be broken down to individual, interpersonal and community levels, according to the report.
The SDOH defined by the committee are:
Individual-level SDOH
- Race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration and acculturation
- Educational attainment, income and employment
- Language and literacy
- Health literacy, broadband access and digital literacy
- Dietary quality and food insecurity
- Health insurance status
Interpersonal SDOH
- Social connection or network
- Interpersonal discrimination
- Disparate healthcare quality
- Psychosocial stress
Community SDOH
- Racial and ethnic segregation
- Housing quality
- Civic participation and voting rights
- Environmental conditions
- Access to and availability of health care services
- Community-level education, income and employment
- Community-level rates of incarceration, crime and violence
- Transportation access and walkability
- Research infrastructure and access to clinical trials
- Composite social determinants of health measures