Integrating Social Determinants of Health Into Clinical Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are often incorporated to some degree within preclinical medical education, but no validated curriculum exists for the incorporation of SDOH and the competencies necessary to address nonclinical contributors to health, within clinical educational programming. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to implement this programming in a virtual setting.

Using pedagogy developed by Freire and Dewey, we created a service-learning curriculum supported by reflection sessions, workshops on implicit bias, and journal clubs. We used flipped classroom and adult-learning theory to develop and implement this curriculum.

Learners showed significant enthusiasm for this novel curriculum, identifying the incorporation of SDOH and related competencies in clinical education as unique and imperative, requesting that the content be further integrated within the clinical experience of State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University.

We developed a service-based curriculum that succeeded in developing further understanding of how patients experience their health in Central Brooklyn, and provided a space for students to generate emotional and interpersonal expertise that is important for the growth of clinicians in caring for patients in underserved and underresourced communities.