Economic stability is defined as a domain of social determinants of health in the Healthy People 2030 campaign. It relates to an individual’s ability to access resources such as food, adequate housing, and healthcare. Each component of economic stability, including poverty, employment, food security, and housing stability, is linked to individual health outcomes.

Education access and quality is a pillar of the social determinants of health for Healthy People 2030 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). This course outlines the effects of education on an individual’s health. The four components of education access and quality include early childhood education and development, high school graduation, enrollment in higher education, and language and literacy.

All healthcare professionals must be aware of bias and the challenges that bias can create in healthcare. This includes knowing some of the challenges people face with the healthcare system. In this course, you will learn best practices to help recognize and manage bias.

Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the delivery of quality care. It refers to meeting the needs of people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Cultural competence must be a two-way system to benefit people with differing beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. This course discusses cultural competence and how organizations can use cultural competency to create an atmosphere of inclusion.

Nearly 10% of U.S. population does not have health insurance (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion [ODPHP], n.d.a). Healthy People 2030 is a national population and public health initiative endorsed by top U.S. government health agencies, setting health goals for the U.S. healthcare system to improve the overall wellbeing of patients in their communities. This course provides an in-depth and interactive analysis of one of the five Healthy People 2030’s domains of social determinants of health (SDOH), healthcare access and quality, and its impact on patient outcomes. 

Culture affects how individuals talk about and recognize their mental health symptoms. It also affects how providers conceptualize and work with individuals with diverse backgrounds. It is important to recognize how culture influences the ways individuals and providers approach mental health. Healthcare providers should be encouraged to use interventions and strategies that assist in delivering culturally competent care.

This course will examine the reasons for healthcare disparities among culturally diverse individuals, how both the cultural backgrounds of patients and their providers can impact patients’ mental health outcomes, and what kinds of actions providers can take to provide more effective care to patients of diverse cultures.

Healthcare professionals often encounter patients experiencing agitation or displaying hostile behavior during their careers. De-escalation is a set of approaches and techniques used to assist patients in self-calming to avoid incidents of harm to self, others, or property. Professionals should understand escalation and physiological responses to threats. After determining the risk of escalation, healthcare professionals can use various aspects of verbal communication, such as tone and pitch, and nonverbal communication skills to defuse potentially hostile situations and apply the least restrictive interventions. 

The physical environment in which individuals live has a direct impact on their health and wellness and their ability to access healthcare. Healthy People 2030 identifies neighborhoods and the built environment as a domain of the social determinants of health tied to health outcomes. This course provides an in-depth analysis of this domain and how it affects the health and well-being of patient populations. The four components of neighborhood and built environment include access to healthy foods, quality of housing, crime and violence, and environmental conditions. Clinicians can leverage this knowledge to improve treatment planning for patients and health outcomes.

Health outcomes are influenced in myriad ways by an individual’s social environment and their community. For example, community is linked to such outcomes as body mass index, homicide rates, and suicidal behavior (Diez Roux & Mair, 2010; Bharmal et al., 2015; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). Due to these strong influences on health outcomes, the U.S. Department Health and Human Services Healthy People 2030 campaign identifies social and community context as a domain of the social determinants of health. Social determinants of health are external conditions which exist with the potential to affect a patient’s current and future health, often beyond a patient’s direct control. Of particular importance, however, is how this domain fits into the larger picture of the social determinants of health. The elements in the social and community context have been shown to help negate potentially negative consequences of the other social determinants of health (Bharmal et al., 2015).