Discussing Trends and Gaps in SDOH
Hi everyone! Welcome back to this week’s blog! I wasn’t able to do much last week because of the senior trip but this week I continued to read through and annotate more research articles pertaining to this topic. In this week’s blog, I will be talking about some of the trends, inconsistencies, and gaps I have analyzed while reading these articles.
Having read and annotated almost ten articles so far, I am starting to see trends and inconsistencies in the different social determinants which is allowing me to start putting all the data together. One of the trends I have noticed is that articles I have read do not delve as much into discrimination (how being discriminated against affects health) compared to the other social determinants. I realized this is mainly because there is a gap on how to study discrimination as a social determinant. There is no effective way for a researcher to gather this information from a person because it is very subjective and can be told with a bias. However, One thing I noticed is that the articles examine intersectionality when looking at discrimination. Intersectionality is the study of how overlapping identities (race, gender, etc…) can cause discrimination and connect it to health. In terms of housing security, all of the articles I have read so far have focused specifically on the quality and affordability of a neighborhood. They talked about how high housing prices force many into homelessness and improper housing infrastructure aid in negative health. However, one of the gaps I found was that there is very little research of direct health impacts of specific housing policies like zoning laws, rent control, affordable housing policy, and more. These are just two of the 5 social determinants I am looking at but I am excited to continue diving into this topic.
In terms of my site placement, I was not able to go into the lab last week because of the senior trip, but I will soon be going to observe and help Dr.Raccette’s research at ASU. Hopefully, In next week’s blog, I will be able to give more information about her research and my role in it. Thank you!!!