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Former HHS Acting Assistant Secretary Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSC, will be co-chairing a new public health institute that will target and engage local health partners to help meet the social determinants of health.
The de Beaumont Foundation and the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine, and Society (HMS) Program will be spearheading the Public Health Reaching Across Sectors (PHRASES) Initiative. PHRASES will work to educate, train, and engage local community members – such as local government leaders, environmental support, school officials – in understanding their influence on public health.
Most of a patient’s life is spent outside of the hospital and external factors are significant influences on health status. The social determinants of health – factors such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and educational attainment, for example – can drive certain health outcomes regardless of the level of care.