ABSTRACT
Social determinants of health (SDoH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, grow, work, and age that affect a wide range of health and quality of health outcomes and risks. These factors which include socioeconomic status, physical environment, education, food, community/social system, government policies, etc. work in a complex fashion to influence overall quality of life of individuals and populations. Health disparities and inequities seen in many developing countries in Africa can be partly explained by these social determinants. The increasing prevalence and associated burden of both infectious and chronic diseases is in part driven by unimproved social determinants and the consequences are exacerbated during disease outbreaks and pandemics. Health promotion and disease prevention are the cornerstones of public health. Activities to promote health and prevent diseases can only be effective if attention is focused on improving SDoH across regions of a country. Even so, an understanding of the relationship among these determinants is critical to the overall effectiveness of measures taken to improve these determinants. This paper provides a reflective review of how social determinants influence health while drawing on insights from the COVID-19 pandemic and from the perspective of the African continent.
