Is There a Dearth of Advanced and Innovative Technologies in the Teaching of Social Determinants of Health to Medical School Students?
Abstract: In recent years questions have arisen about whether medical school teaching is overemphasizing the causes of disease that have a straightforward anatomic, genetic or chemical basis while underemphasizing the contributions to disease that arise from social determinants of health. In the latter category are harmful forces of everyday life that can negatively impact health, from poverty-level incomes to deleterious housing environments to inaccessibility of quality food to racially oppressive environments. It is important that medical students learn about the damaging influences in this category because they have been shown to be major sources of disease and disability among patient populations. In order to gain one indication of whether or not medical schools provide, in this area, robust teaching to medical students using advanced and innovative teaching technologies, a medical literature search strategy was used to seek publications documenting such activity. The results imply that substantial untapped opportunities exist for making greater use of advanced and innovative teaching technologies in teaching this material to medical students, an observation emphasized by the finding of several such teaching technologies used in teaching residents (trainees beyond the medical school years) about social determinants of health and also in teaching medical students about subject areas of an anatomic, genetic or chemical nature.