Social Determinants of Health Database
AHRQ's database on Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) was created under a project funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Trust Fund. The purpose of this project is to create easy to use, easily linkable SDOH-focused data to use in PCOR research, inform approaches to address emerging health issues, and ultimately contribute to improved health outcomes.
The database was developed to make it easier to find a range of well documented, readily linkable SDOH variables across domains without having to access multiple source files, facilitating SDOH research and analysis.
Variables in the files correspond to five key SDOH domains: social context (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, veteran status), economic context (e.g., income, unemployment rate), education, physical infrastructure (e.g, housing, crime, transportation), and healthcare context (e.g., health insurance). The files can be linked to other data by geography (county, ZIP Code, and census tract). The database includes data files and codebooks by year at three levels of geography, as well as a documentation file.
The data contained in the SDOH database are drawn from multiple sources and variables may have differing availability, patterns of missing, and methodological considerations across sources, geographies, and years. Users should refer to the data source documentation and codebooks, as well as the original data sources, to help identify these patterns. AHRQ welcomes feedback on the SDOH Database. If users have questions, suggestions, or any issues with the data, send feedback to SDOH@ahrq.hhs.gov.
Download Data and Documentation
Data Source Documentation (PDF, 6 MB) contains information for researchers about the structure and contents of the database and descriptions of each data source used to populate the database.
| Codebook Files 2009-2020 | County Data 2009-2020 | ZIP Code Data 2011-2020 | Census Tract Data 2009-2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 (XLSX, 374 KB) | 2009 (XLSX, 9 MB) | 2009 (XLSX, 82 MB) | |
| 2010 (XLSX, 411 KB) | 2010 (XLSX, 11 MB) | 2010 (XLSX, 102 MB) | |
| 2011 (XLSX, 435 KB) | 2011 (XLSX, 11 MB) | 2011 (XLSX, 49 MB) | 2011 (XLSX, 92 MB) |
| 2012 (XLSX, 439 KB) | 2012 (XLSX, 11 MB) | 2012 (XLSX, 51 MB) | 2012 (XLSX, 96 MB) |
| 2013 (XLSX, 459 KB) | 2013 (XLSX, 12 MB) | 2013 (XLSX, 56 MB) | 2013 (XLSX, 107 MB) |
| 2014 (XLSX, 466 KB) | 2014 (XLSX, 13 MB) | 2014 (XLSX, 56 MB) | 2014 (XLSX, 108 MB) |
| 2015 (XLSX, 496 KB) | 2015 (XLSX, 13 MB) | 2015 (XLSX, 56 MB) | 2015 (XLSX, 120 MB) |
| 2016 (XLSX, 482 KB) | 2016 (XLSX, 14 MB) | 2016 (XLSX, 56 MB) | 2016 (XLSX, 108 MB) |
| 2017 (XLSX, 482 KB) | 2017 (XLSX, 13 MB) | 2017 (XLSX, 60 MB) | 2017 (XLSX, 115 MB) |
| 2018 (XLSX, 498 KB) | See user note (in box on the upper right) | 2018 (XLSX, 62 MB) | 2018 (XLSX, 120 MB) |
| 2019 (XLSX, 479 KB) | 2019 (XLSX, 13 MB) | 2019 (XLSX, 61 MB) | 2019 (XLSX, 127 MB) |
| 2020 (XLSX, 440 KB) | 2020 (XLSX, 10 MB) | 2020 (XLSX, 59 MB) | 2020 (XLSX, 129 MB) |
These files replace the SDOH Database (beta version). To ensure consistency in variable names and construction, analyses should not combine data from the beta version and the updated database. The archived SDOH database (beta version) is available for reference.
Visualizing SDOH Data
To demonstrate the possibilities of the SDOH data files, AHRQ has created the visualization Poverty and Access to Internet, by County that shows county-level percentages of households with computers and smartphones and percentages of households with any type of broadband (including cellular data plans). Because these rates increase with income, the map also shows county-level percentages of individuals in poverty.
SDOH Environmental Scan
AHRQ conducted an environmental scan (XLSX, 46 KB) of SDOH data sources to inform the development of AHRQ’s SDOH beta data files publicly released in December 2020. AHRQ is releasing the environmental scan as a resource for analysts interested in identifying SDOH-related data sources. The scan aims to identify as many SDOH data sources as possible as of July 2020 at the ZIP Code, county, and State level for the domains of social context, economic context, education, physical infrastructure, and healthcare context. The scan is organized in an Excel spreadsheet to maintain the filter functionality of each column in the scan so that analysts can sort by variables such as SDOH domain or level of geography.
This work was supported by the Office of the Secretary Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund Under Interagency Agreement 750119PE0K0036.
