Social Determinants of Health and Implementation Research: Three Decades of Progress and a Need for Convergence

In 2020, Ethnicity & Disease celebrated 30 years of continuous publishing on the scientific quest to understand racial and ethnic variations in health and disease and the implications of those differences for population health and health equity.1 During that period, recognition of the importance of social determinants of health (SDOH) increased significantly, especially after release of the final report of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2008.2 A central theme We share themes from these 13 articles in three subsections. Although all articles are relevant to the integration of SDOH, health disparities, and implementation science, five articles address SDOH broadly using examples from cardiovascular diseases and risk factors,7-9 cancer care,10 and guideline adherence in infant feeding11; five articles highlight the importance of stigma, discrimination, and health disparities12-16; and the three remaining articles address crosscutting themes at the interface of health equity and implementation research.17,18