This Little-Used Hack Could Be a Game-Changer for Health Disparities
Doctors can prescribe medicine for health conditions. What can they do for homelessness, food insecurity, and other social determinants of health?
As a bright-eyed family medicine physician fresh out of her residency, Laura Gottlieb expected to face challenges as she cared for low-income Seattle residents. She steeled herself to confront the ravages of addiction and HIV. Gottlieb knew many had histories of abuse and trauma, and they also had to manage chronic conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, and kidney failure.
Gottlieb had tools, however imperfect, to address her patients’ direct and immediate medical needs. She could prescribe insulin for diabetes, inhalers for asthma, and statins for high cholesterol. What she couldn’t do was ensure that the people she treated had a safe place to live, enough food to eat, and reliable transportation. As time passed, Gottlieb came to understand that it was these factors — what scientists call social determinants of health, or SDoH — that were playing the largest role in her patients’ health, not anything she did or didn’t do.
Gottlieb couldn’t prescribe a visit to the food pantry nor could she assist with finding Section 8…
