As social determinants of health become more widely recognized for their effects on health outcomes, the policies that create such determinants are also important to understand, the American Medical Association reported Feb. 21.
Policies put into place by the U.S. government that targeted Black people and other people of color affected their standard of living, and thus their social determinants of health and healthcare access.
The Social Security Act of 1935 denied benefits to domestic workers and agricultural laborers, a group mostly composed of people of color. The Home Owners' Loan Act of 1933 denied housing loans and investments to Black people, meaning that they were refused access to the economic opportunity and stability home ownership affords.
These policies helped keep people of color in poverty, which subsequently affected their health outcomes, evidenced by higher rates of asthma, cancer and heart disease found in poorer areas.
"It's not a coincidence that certain groups of people in America experience higher premature death rates or poorer health outcomes than others," Daniel Dawes, professor of health policy and executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, told AMA. "The nation's health isn't an organic outcome."