Hawai‘i Healthcare Research Partnership
Social Determinants of Health
Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)
According to the CDC: "SDOH are defined as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that shape health. Socio-economic status, discrimination, education, neighborhood and physical environment, employment, housing, food security and access to healthy food choice, access to transportation, social support networks and connection to culture, as well as access to healthcare are all determinants of health. SDOH are shaped by the distribution of money, socio-economic status, power, and resources throughout local and national communities, and throughout the world. Differences in these and other conditions lead to health inequities or the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries. The health of population groups, including that of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, are affected differently by these factors, leading to disparities in health outcomes for different populations".
Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/sdoh/index.html
Med-QUEST Division (MQD) & Social Determinants of Health
According to the Hawai'i Quality Strategy 2020: "The island geography of Hawai‘i has given rise to great diversity at the local community level. Hawai‘i state law recognizes that all state agency planning should prioritize addressing the social determinants of health to improve health and well-being for all, including Native Hawaiians. Therefore, MQD will build on and support culturally appropriate and effective initiatives, support interventions that promote and improve health equity, and reduce health and geographic disparities. Further, MQD recognizes that achieving the healthy communities and healthy families will not be successful if health disparities persist, and critical social needs affecting SDOH are left unaddressed. As such, MQD is committed to systematically evaluating health disparities and identifying and addressing unmet social needs to achieve the objectives across all goal areas of the Medicaid Quality Strategy".
Source: State of Hawaii -Department of Human Services Med-QUEST Division. Hawai‘i Quality Strategy 2020.
MQD SDOH Transformation Plan to Address Health Disparities
According to the Hawai'i Quality Strategy 2020: "Additionally, MQD intends to develop a SDOH Transformation Plan in partnership with its Health Plans (HP) which, when complete, will represent MQD’s plan to identify, evaluate, and reduce, to the extent practicable, health disparities based on age, race, ethnicity, sex (gender when available), primary language, and disability status.The SDOH Transformation Plan seeks to first develop a strategic plan by DHS, in collaboration with its managed care health plans, on strategies to assess and address SDOH. MQD will also require HP to submit patient-level data files on quality data to support and augment efforts to conduct disparities-based analyses. The SDOH Transformation Plan is expected to develop a shared MQD and HP Road Map to comprehensively and systematically address health disparities. Simultaneously, the SDOH Transformation Plan will pave the way for the development of financial mechanisms to address and mitigate health disparities and unmet social needs. HP will be expected to align to, and describe their 'on the ground' community and beneficiary-level activities that will realize the overall goals and strategies of, the SDOH Transformation Plan". MQD's multi-pronged strategy to assess and address SDOH needs across the population has the primary goal of supporting community initiatives to improve population health, while also improving outcomes of beneficiaries with high needs/high cost and maintaining access to appropriate care.
Source: State of Hawaii -Department of Human Services Med-QUEST Division. Hawai‘i Quality Strategy 2020.
MQD_Quality_Strategy_Master_FINAL (1).pdf