Written by: Anne Heaney

The UAB Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC), powered by the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center (MHRC), produced a free resource toolkit with validated measures for social determinants of health – the external conditions that impact health.

Over the last year, this toolkit has proven to be useful, according to Elizabeth Baker, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology. Since its release, Baker has been asked to share the toolkit with UAB faculty and investigators. It has also been incorporated in classes across campus.

When speaking to students, Baker keeps her presentations focused on available measures, different levels of measurement, and appropriate statistical techniques when examining social determinants of health. She also presented the toolkit at the UAB Core Day on February 23, 2022.

Baker plans to take the toolkit to the next level. She and Gabriela Oates, Ph.D, assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine, will map the toolkit’s social determinants of health categories onto clinical events in electronic medical records (EMR) to facilitate research. They are also in the process of updating the toolkit with area-level measures of social determinants of health that can be geo-linked with patient data. These activities are supported by the MHRC’s Social Determinants of Health Core that Baker and Oates co-lead.

The toolkit is housed in UAB’s Canvas platform and is accessible with a Blazer ID. It also can be accessed here. Email mhrc-sdh@uabmc.edu for more information.

The UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center (MHRC), established in 2002, generates and disseminates research knowledge from biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences in order to reduce the health disparities experienced by vulnerable populations and disadvantaged communities locally, regionally, and nationally. By aligning research, training and community outreach, the MHRC advances scientific knowledge about the root causes of health inequalities and delivers real-world solutions to vulnerable communities. The MHRC is a University-wide Interdisciplinary Research Center and a designated Center of Excellence in Health Disparities Research by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

UAB Obesity Health Disparities Research Center (OHDRC) is driven to reduce obesity and obesity related health disparities in Alabama. The Center supports transdisciplinary, multi-level, and multi-domain research to understand the complex contributors to obesity and related health disparities. The OHDRC fosters collaborative research, supports young investigators, and partners to build healthier communities. The OHDRC, Grant Number U54MD000502, is an MHRC initiative funded through the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities Centers of Excellence Program.