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Beyond Data: Strategies to Reduce Racial Missteps for Behavioral Healthcare Providers
Discussions of social determinants of behavioral health (SDBH) are often limited to data. While statistics are extremely valuable to understand the impact of institutional and systemic forces across racial and economic lines, SDBH conversations regularly exclude practical means to raise the...
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Social Determinants and Adolescents’ Mental Health: First, Focus on Education and Graduation
Over recent decades, late adolescence and young adulthood, generally the years 16 or 18 through 25, have emerged as a distinct developmental period in the human life span. In the mental health field, the term Transition Age Youth and Young Adults – TAYYA – has come to describe young people of...
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The East New York Health Hub: A Model for Addressing Social Determinants of Health
By definition and mission, non-profit human services organizations have been addressing the social determinants of health for over a century1 and have long understood the impact these factors have on health (mental and physical). Until about a decade ago, however, these same providers were not a...
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A Network Approach for Social Determinants of Health
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describes Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) as “conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play that affect a wide range of health and quality-of life-risks and outcomes.”1 The impacts of these social determinants of health are well...
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The Great Accelerant: COVID-19 and the Social Determinants of Behavioral Health
The effects from the COVID-19 pandemic are intensifying the wave of transition sweeping across health and behavioral health care. In the pandemic’s wake is accentuating our social inequalities and health disparities, from race and social justice, workforce inequality, to the influence of social...
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Social Determinants of Health and COVID-19: A Peer Perspective
As a peer professional and advocate who helps people recognize their inherent strengths and works to facilitate recovery, it is so very disappointing to consider that after the huge volume of research that has been conducted, and the enormous number of scholarly articles which have been written,...
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Social Determinants of Behavioral Health: Time to Augment Advocacy Strategy?
The hope implicit in the concept of social determinants is that broad changes in the social, economic, and political structures of our communities, nations, and world can result in improved behavioral health of large populations, such as regions, age-groups, social classes, genders, disabilities,...
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The NYSPA Report: American Psychiatric Association Approaches to Social Determinants of Mental Health
The year 2020 refocused our attention on the social determinants of mental health. From structural racism to economic insecurity to healthcare disparities, people have become acutely aware of the insidious discrimination and losses that vulnerable individuals and communities have suffered. Rates of...
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NYS Office of Mental Health Seeks to Address the Social Determinants That Affect Mental Health in Our Communities
A part of New York State’s strength lies in its diversity, which provides us with the wisdom of many different cultures from which we can all learn. But diversity is often accompanied by inexcusable inequity, as residents of some communities are exposed greater risk of health problems. The...
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Is Technology a Social Determinant of Health?
In late March of 2020, Alicia R. called the intake line at Service Program for Older People (SPOP), a New York City-based behavioral health care provider for older adults. This was during the peak of the initial COVID-19 outbreak in New York City and all residents were advised to remain in their...
