Recognizing the significance ofsocial determinants, the ACA mandated that nonprofit hospitalsconduct community needs assessments every three years and take partin community-level planning.

The traditional way for health care systems to improve people'shealth is to provide them with the best medical care possible. Inrecent years, however, there has been a push to get hospitals toimprove the health of their communities by supporting non-medicalprograms aimed at social determinants of health.

Social determinants of health include a variety of lifecircumstances that can affect health, such as stress, socialisolation, poverty, food access, family support, access toeducation, unemployment and job safety, among many others.

There are well-established relationships between many of life'shardships, from poverty to stress, and common medical conditions,such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Related: 5 steps to integrate social determinants of healthinto our health care system

Recognizing the significance of social determinants, theAffordable Care Act mandated that nonprofit hospitals conductcommunity needs assessments every three years and take part incommunity-level planning aimed at enhancing the health of thecommunities they operate in.

Despite the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle much of the ACA, it has beensupportive of the law's emphasis on social determinants and hasgranted Medicaid waivers allowing states to provide coverage ofservices addressing certain non-medical needs. North Carolina'sMedicaid program, for instance, will seek to connect beneficiarieswith services that address issues such as "housing instability,transportation insecurity, food insecurity, and interpersonalviolence and toxic stress," according to Kaiser Health News.

The political support, however, has not prompted hospitals toinvest a great deal in efforts aimed at social determinants. HealthAffairs recently conducted an analysis of news coveragerelated to 626 health systems across the country from2017 to 2019 and only found evidence that 57 of them hadmade specific funding commitments to programs targeting socialdeterminants.

Although the study authors conceded that some hospitals may havemade investments without announcing them, they argue that it'sunlikely that a hospital would make a significant contributionwithout alerting the press.

The commitments the study identified amounted to nearly $2.5billion. The biggest area of investment is housing, followed byemployment, education and food security.

The largest single investment came from Kaiser Permanente, whichcommitted $760 million to eight different programs. Both the JohnsHopkins system and MetroHealth in Cleveland commited about $160million.

Read more: 

• How social determinants of health affect youremployee benefit program
• Insurers to work together on social barriers tohealth
• Americans want health care providers involved infood, housing, transportation needs