NIH-wide Social Determinants of Health Research Coordinating Committee

A conceptualization of social determinants of health (SDOH) was developed by the NIH-wide SDOH Research Coordinating Committee (RCC). The SDOH RCC determined that a unified conceptualization of SDOH was essential for NIH-wide coordination and strategic growth of the evidence base for SDOH impacts on health, advancement of methods, and intervention development and testing. The conceptualization builds on existing SDOH frameworks and concepts but is refined to help the NIH effectively communicate with the scientific community and, over time, continue to strengthen and expand a framework for SDOH research. In addition to drawing from extant SDOH frameworks, the conceptualization was informed by relevant literature and by subject matter experts from across the NIH. See below for NIH’s conceptualization of SDOH. 

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, learn, work, play, live, and age, and the wider set of structural factors shaping the conditions of daily life. These structural factors include social, economic, and legal forces, systems, and policies that determine opportunities and access to high quality jobs, education, housing, transportation, built environment, information and communication infrastructure, food, and health care; the social environment; and other conditions of daily life. 

• SDOH can improve, maintain, or hinder health through multiple direct, indirect, and interacting mechanistic pathways. 
• SDOH may interact with other determinants of health, such as biological, psychological, behavioral, and chemical and other environmental factors, to further promote or compromise health.   
• SDOH influence family- and individual-level social and economic circumstances, such as income, educational attainment, access to digital tools and broadband, nutrition security, and housing stability. When unfavorable or adverse, these circumstances are considered social risks or, when prioritized by individuals in the context of health care, social needs (e.g., low income, housing instability). 
• SDOH may have different health consequences within and across populations due to differences in exposure or susceptibility to health-promoting and health-compromising conditions of daily life. 
• Structural factors, rooted in racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and other discriminatory systems, shape the extent to which the conditions of daily life are equitably distributed in society, or whether they are unfairly distributed based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic position, or geography, and their intersections. Inequitable allocation of power and resources manifest in unequal exposure to social and economic conditions. Exposures created by intersecting socio-demographic and identity factors highlight the importance of an intersectional lens and approaches to SDOH research.
• Addressing SDOH is relevant to population, community, and individual health and to reducing health disparities and advancing health equity.  

NIH added Social Determinants of Health as a new category in its Research, Condition, and Disease Classification (RCDC) system in 2020, and the 2021-2025 NIH-Wide Strategic Plan calls for foundational science on how social exposures and experiences alone, ​and in combination with biological and behavioral factors, ​impact human health.​

With participation from over 20 NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs), the SDOH RCC represents a coordinated and collaborative initiative to accelerate domestic and global research to better understand the multiple and interacting social, psychological, behavioral, and biologic mechanisms through which SDOH affect outcomes and to identify effective interventions at multiple levels across diseases and conditions over the life course.

View the NIH-wide SDOH RCC Charter

View the NIH SDOH Executive Committee Charter

Executive Committee Co-Chairs:

• NIMHD - Eliseo Perez-Stable
• NINR - Shannon Zenk
• OBSSR - Jane Simoni

Executive Committee

• FIC - Peter Kilmarx 
• NCATS - Elaine Collier 
• NCCIH - Helene Langevin 
• NCI - Katrina Goddard 
• NHGRI - Vence Bonham 
• NIA - Lis Nielsen 
• NIAAA - Patricia Powell 
• NIAMS - Susana Serrate-Sztein 
• NICHD - Alison Cernich 
• NIDA - Aria Crump 
• NIDCR - Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque 
• NIDDK - Pamela Thornton 
• NIEHS - Gwen Collman  
• NIMH - Patricia Areán 
• NINDS - Walter Koroshetz 
• OAR - Paul Gaist 
• ODP - Jennifer Alvidrez 
• ORWH - Janine Clayton 
• SGMRO - Karen Parker 
   

RCC Coordinators

• NCI - April Oh 
• NIEHS - Lindsey Martin 
• NIMHD - Gniesha Dinwiddie 
• NINR - Shalanda Bynum 
• OBSSR - Roz King
   

RCC Representatives

View Full List of RCC Members

SDOH RCC-Authored Blogs:

• Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society: An NIH-Wide Effort to Advance Health Equity

• Advancing Social Determinants of Health Research at NIH Through Cross-Cutting Collaboration