Social Determinants of What?

Despite leading the world in per capita spending on traditional health care, the United States ranks near the bottom in many health outcomes and now for the first time in generations, life expectancy in US has plateaued and is declining. This is largely due to social determinants of health: socioeconomic income and wealth inequality, social mobility, racial, geographic and behavioral factors that aren't being adequately addressed by the U.S. healthcare system. This session will focus on the use of Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence to model and understand social determinants of health towards a value-based care models that seek to improve and maintain health instead of treating illness.

Our study on SDoH showed that a low income individual is 2.2x times more likely to have diabetes, and 1.8x times to likely to face behavioral and mental challenges. Under such outcomes, the healthcare cost for those individuals became 40% higher. Similarly, we observed a direct correlation between vaccination and mortality, such that in 50 to 65 age group, more females are vaccinated for common illnesses such as influenza but with much less mortality rate compare to males. Finally, to support the evidence of how income & lifestyle relates to health & well being, 4 counties out of top 10 with the lowest life expectancy are located in Puerto Rico whereas Colorado has the most counties with highest life expectancy.