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Post-election town hall: Possible policy impacts on the social determinants of health

Ambulance in front of a small building.

The social determinants of health (SDOH) – non-clinical factors, such as housing, transportation, etc. that influence health – have been featured increasingly in recent years in regulations, legislation, waivers, and programs at all levels of government.

What will the election results mean for these efforts?

As part of our Building Healthy Neighborhoods project, Brookings Senior Fellow Stuart Butler speaks with three veteran experts to assess how the results of the 2020 election might impact efforts to advance SDOH approaches to health care. Our panelists, who bring a broad range and depth of expertise, include:

  • Kavita Patel served as the director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House during the Obama Administration. Dr. Patel is currently a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and previously was the managing director of clinical transformation at the Center for Health Policy at Brookings.
  • Len Nichols is a non-resident Fellow of the Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute. Dr. Nichols heads the Urban Institute’s CAPGI project, which explores community-wide techniques to encourage investment in SDOH. He has more than two decades of experience in advising government and the private sector on health policy.
  • Melissa Quick is the Co-Chair of Aligning for Health, a membership organization committed to reducing barriers to SDOH. She is Vice-President at Sirona Strategies, a health care consulting firm, and previously served in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

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