Transforming Social Determinants to Promote Global Health: Achieving Health Equity through Lived Experiences

This unique book addresses the need for the scholarly works that include the voices of clinicians, community stakeholders, and leaders of faith-based institutions in various phases of developing, implementing, and evaluating programs that address health inequities and health disparities among marginalized, middle and low resource communities. Another feature of this book is the contributions to the evidence on SDOH from not only academic researchers but clinicians, community partners, and leaders of faith-based institutions. The overall purpose of this book is really to highlight global community-based programs that have been implemented in marginalized, middle and low resource global communities. The communities represented are rural, urban-inner city, located in Southern, Northeastern, and Western U. S. as well as global communities from Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Botswana, the Grenadines, Nigeria, and Peru. For ease of reading, the editors have further classified these SDOH conditions illustrated in chapters organized according to a 4 pillar SDOH framework of social, cultural, physical environment, social environment, and policy conditions.

This book contributes to a diverse perspective of the possibilities of incorporating SDOH into communities and faith-based institutions. The long-range objectives are to inform, inspire, and encourage the novice and senior faculty, clinician, community stakeholder, and faith-based institutional leader to develop, implement, and evaluate SDOH on health and health disparities among the communities they serve.

The intended audience of this book is faculty of nursing, public health, and medicine in academic and practice settings; professional leaders of nursing, public health, and medicine; community stakeholders, and leaders of faith-based institutions engaged in partnerships with health care providers. This text might also be useful to faculty of foreign studies, and behavioral sciences.

Jill Hamilton, PhD, MRPL, RN, FAAN is Professor, tenured, and Senior Faculty Fellow of SDOH & Health Disparities at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and Affiliate Professor at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Hamilton earned her BSN, MSN, and PhD in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Masters in Religion and Public Life from the Candler School of Theology, a BS in Accounting from North Carolina Central University, and postdoctoral training in the nursing care of older adults at the Oregon Health & Science University. She previously held faculty positions at Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was tenured Associate Professor. Dr. Hamilton’s research interests include social determinants of health, health disparities, and the mental health promoting strategies used among older African American their families in response to life-threatening illness. She has developed culturally-relevant measures of social support and spirituality and has conducted research to examine ways in which these social determinants influence health outcomes. Dr. Hamilton is published on topics related to culture, social support, religiosity, spirituality, and quality of life among African Americans with life-threatening illness. She has done original research on the effects of Storytelling that incorporates religious songs and scripture on psychological distress among older and younger African Americans. The findings from this research are published in Cancer Nursing, the Journal of Religion and Health, the Gerontologist, and Nursing Research. She was a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar from 2003-2007 and a member of the 2014 Class of the UNC Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars. Dr. Hamilton is currently a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and a Faculty Scholar of the Center for Spirituality, Theology & Health at Duke University. She was the recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina and the 2011 OncologyvNursing Society (ONS) Publishing’s Division Award for Excellence in Writing Qualitative Research.  

Charles E. Moore, MD, FAACE is Professor and Eminent Physician at Emory University and the Chief of Service in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Grady HealthCare System. Dr. Moore received a Bachelor of Science from Union College and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He subsequently completed residency training in Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery and fellowship training in Craniomaxillofacial – Cranial Base, Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Michigan. Dr. Moore is a Professor at Emory University and the Chief of Service in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Grady Health System. Dr. Moore has a longstanding andprofound commitment to the training and development of learners from all backgrounds. His research focus has been in the investigation of factors involved in healthcare disparity with a particular focus on head and neck cancer incidence in medically underserved communities. He is the President and Founder of Health Education, Assessment and Leadership (HEAL), Inc. This organization began in 2004 as a travelling educational resource out of the back of his personal vehicle. Through this organization, he strives to educate the community on health issues, assess its needs and in the process build leaders from within the community to address those issues. This travelling health resource has grown into the Healing Community Center (HCC), one of Atlanta’s newest Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers. The HCC is focused on those who fall in the gap between public funded health care and the privately insured. A primary emphasis is on preventative health, nutrition, and wellness. Further, theHCC incorporates all of the major Atlanta academic institutions and community organizations in an integrated fashion to provide service-learning experiences while also providing the necessary care to those in need. Dr. Moore is the recipient of numerous international and national awards that include the American Medical Association Foundation Pride in Profession, Excellence in Medicine Awards, the 2011 Gold Foundation Award for Humanism in Médicine, and the 2015 Jérôme C. Goldstein, MD Public Service Award. He is also the recipient of the Healthcare Georgia Foundation Award, the Zenith Award for Community Activism from the City of Atlanta and the Rollins School of Public Health, and the Martin Luther King Community Service Award Recipient for his work in impoverished communities. Dr. Moore is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and most recently received the Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory University for his distinguished leadership and service to the Emory and Atlantacommunity.