The Social Determinant of Health Assessment
The Social Determinant of Health Assessment
The comprehensive assessment includes more than just exploring the patient’s physical and mental well-being. It must also focus on the social and physical environments that promote health. As an advanced practice nurse, you must learn to explore the social and physical determinants of health and how they affect the patient. In doing so, this assessment must also focus on the social and physical environments that promote health. These environmental determinants include places of birth, neighborhoods, life, experiences, work environments, recreational activities, and worship practices. These determinants affect health, daily functions, and quality-of- life risks and outcomes. Resources that can affect access to quality healthcare include safe and affordable housing, access to education and emerging technologies, public safety, the availability of healthy foods, and local health and emergency services.
The purpose of this task is to reflect on how such outside factors affect your patient’s access to quality healthcare.
- Reflect on the comprehensive health assessment you performed in task 1 by doing the following:
- Discuss the strategy you used to assess your patient’s social determinants.
- List five key questions you used to assess social determinants.
- Explain what you would add to the patient’s plan of care based on the patient’s responses to key questions in A1a.
- Explain how your patient’s economic stability affects his or her access to healthcare, including each of the following points:
- socioeconomic status
- employment status
- housing stability
- Analyze how your patient’s educational status affects his or her health.
- Analyze how your patient’s health literacy affects his or her health.
- Discuss the healthcare barriers and opportunities the patient might face because of his or her educational status.
- Analyze how the patient’s health and healthcare status affect his or her quality of life.
- Explain how the patient’s neighborhood and environment affect his or her access to health.
- Compare the healthcare (e.g., quality, access, outcomes) of a patient living in a low-income area is likely to receive with the healthcare of a patient living in a high-income area is likely to receive.
- Discuss how access to healthcare differs for patients living in rural versus urban areas.
- Discuss how a patient’s neighborhood affects his or her access to healthy food options.
- Discuss why social determinants need to be addressed in your comprehensive health assessment.
- Based on the assessment, identify three highest priority social determinants that affect your patient.
- Based upon the three chosen social determinants, develop a patient plan of care.
- Explain how you would implement your plan based upon the social determinants identified.
- Identify any barriers to implementing the interventions from part B2.
- Discuss who needs to be involved in the interventions (e.g., healthcare practitioners, community members, family).
- Explain how you would evaluate the effectiveness of your patient’s plan of care.
- Summarize the impact of social determinants on your patient’s overall well-being.
- Sources
Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
There are 6 key elements of the rubric for the Social determinants Task, including:
- Strategies and questions used to assess and document social determinants
- Key Social Determinants: Economic Stability, Educational Status, Opportunities and Barriers, Health Literacy
- Effect of Health on Quality of Life; Neighborhood and Environmental Impacts; Healthy Food Options
- Health care in Low- and High-income areas as well as rural and urban areas
- Identification of Social Determinants; Patient Plan of Care, Implementation, Barriers, Individuals involved and Evaluation
Discussion and Summation of Impact of Social Determinants