Understanding and Mitigating Health Disparities Arising from the Social Determinants of Health

Abstract

AbstractOver the pandemic, health has become increasingly important, and our idea of what it means to be healthy has changed. Previously we viewed health disparities as an issue that affected those who were less fortunate, but the pandemic has shown us that the health of all of us is interconnected. Reducing health disparities is important for everyone, as it would improve health not just for those who are directly impacted, but for society as a whole. This study contributes towards reducing health disparities by analyzing what factors have the largest impact on health disparities, and discussing policy changes that are relevant to these factors. This study uses a random forest algorithm to identify important predictors of health from a large variety of factors in Chicagoland and the Bay Area. The analysis finds that race is an important factor in both Chicagoland and the Bay Area, and that lack of internet access and computing devices is an especially important predictor of neighborhoods with poor health.