Social Determinants of Mental Health: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go

TLDR: Recent advances in strategies to collect, evaluate, and analyze social determinants suggest the potential to better appraise their impact and to implement relevant interventions.

Abstract: The present review synthesizes recent literature on social determinants and mental health outcomes and provides recommendations for how to advance the field We summarize current studies related to changes in the conceptualization of social determinants, how social determinants impact mental health, what we have learned from social determinant interventions, and new methods to collect, use, and analyze social determinant data Recent research has increasingly focused on interactions between multiple social determinants, interventions to address upstream causes of mental health challenges, and use of simulation models to represent complex systems However, methodological challenges and inconsistent findings prevent a definitive understanding of which social determinants should be addressed to improve mental health, and within what populations these interventions may be most effective Recent advances in strategies to collect, evaluate, and analyze social determinants suggest the potential to better appraise their impact and to implement relevant interventions