TY - JOUR
T1 - Healthcare lobbying on upstream social determinants of health in the US
AU - Counts, Nathaniel Z.
AU - Taylor, Lauren A.
AU - Willison, Charley E.
AU - Galea, Sandro
N1 - Funding Information:
Dr. Willison received support from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32MH019733 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Ethical approval was not required for this study because there were no human participants in the research design.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Healthcare stakeholders are increasingly investing to address social determinants of health (SDOH) as they seek to improve health outcomes and reduce total healthcare costs in their communities. Policy heavily shapes SDOH, and healthcare lobbying on SDOH issues may offer large impacts through positive policy change. Federal lobbying disclosures from the ten highest spending health insurance and healthcare provider organizations and related associations between 2015 and 2019 were reviewed to identify lobbying reported on the salient SDOH issues, defined based on the Accountable Health Communities Model health-related social needs screening tool. Five of the organizations reported lobbying on some SDOH issues, including financial strain, employment, food insecurity, and interpersonal safety, but none reported lobbying on other issues, such as non-healthcare-related employment, housing instability, transportation, or education. Lobbying has been a missed opportunity for addressing SDOH. Healthcare organizations have the opportunity to expand their lobbying on upstream SDOH policy issues to increase the impact of their SDOH strategy and further improve population health.
AB - Healthcare stakeholders are increasingly investing to address social determinants of health (SDOH) as they seek to improve health outcomes and reduce total healthcare costs in their communities. Policy heavily shapes SDOH, and healthcare lobbying on SDOH issues may offer large impacts through positive policy change. Federal lobbying disclosures from the ten highest spending health insurance and healthcare provider organizations and related associations between 2015 and 2019 were reviewed to identify lobbying reported on the salient SDOH issues, defined based on the Accountable Health Communities Model health-related social needs screening tool. Five of the organizations reported lobbying on some SDOH issues, including financial strain, employment, food insecurity, and interpersonal safety, but none reported lobbying on other issues, such as non-healthcare-related employment, housing instability, transportation, or education. Lobbying has been a missed opportunity for addressing SDOH. Healthcare organizations have the opportunity to expand their lobbying on upstream SDOH policy issues to increase the impact of their SDOH strategy and further improve population health.
KW - Health policy
KW - Healthcare reform
KW - Social determinants of health
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106751
DO - 10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106751
M3 - Article
C2 - 34343593
AN - SCOPUS:85113207007
SN - 0091-7435
VL - 153
JO - Preventive Medicine
JF - Preventive Medicine
M1 - 106751
ER -
