ABSTRACT
The road to addressing the social determinants of health can be a personal journey, leading to a professional impact. In the start of his most recent book, Michael Marmot (2015) recalls his experience as a young physician seeing patients and how he began questioning healthcare to better help individuals. My formal introduction to the social determinants of health began with conversations with Grantland Johnson, California’s Health and Social Service Agency Secretary, in between talking about great baseball players. The discussion continued in depth when I was directing the Sierra Health Foundation Leadership and meeting with the newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer, Chet Hewitt. In that initial conversation Chet suggested inviting Dr. Anthony Iton, the Public Health Officer of Alameda County and his former colleague in this urban county in the San Francisco Bay area, as a speaker to the leadership program.
