DPH Social Health Determinants Video
Told Video
3/11/19 final transcript
Welcome to the Population Health Information Tool or “PHIT”, Community Reports.
Here you can find easy-to-use information on the Social Determinants of Health
and their affect on health inequities in your community.
What are the social determinants of health?
You can think of poor health like a river in a community.
If people fall into the river, it's important to help them.
But by helping one person at a time, we're not focusing
on why people are falling in in the first place.
To figure that out, we have to look upstream.
The reports in PHIT provide tools to do that.
Looking upstream, the problem becomes clear:
some bridges have foundations that are sturdy, while others are not secure.
A strong foundation - representing employment and educational opportunity,
safe and affordable housing, strong built and social environments,
and communities free of violence - supports safe passage over the river.
But some communities have less access to these strong foundations
due to structural and historical inequities such as racism, discrimination and poverty.
The PHIT Community Reports address these
and dig deeper through special “Inequity Alerts”.
What can be done to address these inequities?
By talking with community members, working with different industries -
like housing and education - and using data from these reports,
users can identify what the needs are and what work needs to happen.
In addition, the PHIT Strategy Catalog provides ideas for taking action.
Together, communities can build sturdy bridges so there are safe,
accessible routes to good health open to everyone.
Inequities that harm community health can be found everywhere.
In the PHIT community reports, you can find data listed by region
as well as a living library of strategies to address inequities,
and examples of the history and the structures that help to create them.
PHIT’s goal is to serve the people of Massachusetts and provide tools
to support health for all across the Commonwealth.
We want to know if there’s something else you need,
how you are using these reports, and the strategies you've used
to build strong foundations in your community.
Reach us at D P H dot P H I T at state dot M A dot U S.