Table 1.

Ten theoretical and conceptual issues.

1. What is a determinant?
2. What makes a determinant a social determinant?
3. Are health care and public health SDOH?
4. Can SDOH be harmful and/or beneficial?
5. What about an SDOH makes it a “structural” determinant? What distinguishes structural from non-structural determinants?
6. What is the relationship of SDOH to other, non social (e.g., biological, psychological, environmental) causes?
7. What is the causal flow of SDOH and other determinants of health?
8. Is the cause of a SDOH also an SDOH, and, conversely, are all events caused by SDOH also SDOH?
9. Are there basic, fundamental causes?
10. Should we count as SDOH only those determinants that we can, at least in theory, modify?