Community Care

Conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play — things like housing instability, access to healthy foods, and community violence — significantly affect their health risks and outcomes. Hospitals recognize and work hard to address these conditions, often referred to as the social and environmental determinants of health, with a focus on eliminating disparities in care delivery and health outcomes. The community care programs offered by hospitals and their partners, however, may only scratch the surface of deeper social factors that affect individual health outcomes. More focused state and federal policies will be required if progress is to be made in mitigating people’s health care risks before they become critical care needs.