In this RheumatologyAdvisor podcast episode, Iris Navarro-Millan, MD, rheumatologist at HSS, provides a deeper insight into understanding social determinants of health as drivers of health disparities in rheumatology and urges researchers and clinicians to look beyond just race and ethnicity when addressing these disparities.

Dr. Navarro-Millan explained one of the challenges, “It’s not genetic makeup that makes you by default predisposed or not predisposed to an issue, but it is also to the social environment. That social environment has to look beyond the phenotypes of race and ethnicity. The way that you get to understand that better is by following a systematic, strategic, data collection of social determinants of health.”

She continued, “collecting systematic data on social determinants of health will be important for us to know where to identify actionable gaps in health disparities.”

In order to facilitate change, Dr. Navarro-Millan underscored the importance of understanding how clinical care challenges are influenced by the ways that policies in the health care system have been implemented.

Listen to the full episode at Rheumatologyadvisor.com.