Health Outcomes & Health Behaviors
Underlying social drivers of health strongly influence the length and quality of our lives.
A wide range of factors influence how long and how well we live. It is well known that access to quality medical care, as well as personal health behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco use, play a role in determining the length and quality of our lives. However, the strongest predictors of the length and quality of our lives are underlying factors known as social drivers of health. Social drivers of health include economic factors like income level, social factors like level of family support, and physical environment factors like living near a park or local air quality. Click on the image to the right to learn more.
These pages are designed to give an overview of community level health outcomes and health behaviors at different life stages, including impacts of specific conditions, such as COVID-19, cancer, and oral health. The following data highlight conditions that are affected by social drivers of health and can, therefore, be reduced by improvements to social, economic, and physical environment factors.
Click on the images below to see data about each topic.
References
The links below provide additional information for many of the health topics discussed on this page:
- US Department of Health and Human Services - Social Determinants of Health (also called Social Drivers of Health)