The Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) has created a Center for Social Determinants of Health Innovation to bring together best practices from academia, policy, and the real-world experience of ACAP’s 74 safety net health plan members.
The center plans to offer tailored resources, including policy reports, market research, and roundtable educational events to help health plans, policymakers, and other stakeholders address social issues that impact health and wellbeing, such as housing and food insecurity and insufficient access to transportation. The center aims to help reduce health disparities.
“Longstanding racial inequities cannot improve without meaningfully addressing the social factors underlying them,” said Margaret A. Murray, CEO of ACAP, in a statement. “Safety net health plans have worked in communities across the United States to address factors that shape their members’ health for decades. This new center creates unique opportunities to showcase what works, share that knowledge with others, and support a healthier future for people with low incomes, whose wellbeing has too often been held back by their environment.”
ACAP’s 74 member plans serve more than 22 million individuals with low incomes and significant health needs nationwide.
The center will encourage and empower other stakeholders to support SDOH initiatives. ACAP will work with member plans and with Spring Street Exchange, the organization administering the Center, to identify and distill promising practices into actionable tools and resources for policymakers and health care leaders.
Studies show a majority of differences in health outcomes (60 percent) are due to social factors like housing, access to healthy foods, and economic stability, while only 40 percent are due to differences in access to and quality of medical care.
