Social Determinants of Health are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. These determinants include factors like socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment, employment, and social support networks, as well as access to health care. Addressing social determinants of health has an important role in reducing both health disparities and health inequities.

Health disparities are simply differences in the relative health status of population groups defined by such characteristics as race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and geographic location. Health inequities are differences in health that are not only unnecessary and avoidable but are also considered unfair and unjust.

Offering insights into these differences within our state, the interactive story “Exploring South Carolina’s Social Determinants of Health” provides strategic recommendations for achieving cost-effective optimal outcomes for the SC Medicaid and non-Medicaid populations by exploring the role health disparity, health equity, and social determinants of health play in health outcomes. “Mapping the Story of Health Disparities” highlights geographic disparities in health status among SC Medicaid enrollees and illustrates the spatial association between life-enhancing resource disadvantage and poor health outcomes among Medicaid participants.

The Medicaid population maps linked below look at disease hotspots for both adults and children, disease prevalence across sub-state regions, access to care, and health professional shortage areas across the state.

Access to Care

Hotspots

Mapping the Story of Health Disparities

Exploring South Carolina's Social Determinants of Health