Social Determinants of Health: So What?

I have used this column on previous occasions to draw atten-tion to the social determinants of health (SD). Although sev-eral Canadian researchers have made significant contributions to our understanding of SD and although the WHO Commis-sion on Social Determinants of Health and the first annual report of Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer focused specif-ically on SD, the broader public health (PH) community has been slow to embrace the concept. Although the importance of SD is recognized, why have calls to governments and society at large to take steps to “close the inequity gap in a generation ” so far induced little excitement and mobilization in our community? There are many expla-nations for this inertia, including the current economic reces-sion, the perceived absence of levers to act by local public health professionals and the absence of a dominant publi