Social determinants of health: Awareness and attitude of students and professors in medical sciences universities

BACKGROUND: Considering the obvious and important role of social determinants of health on health outcomes and the mission of medical universities in explaining it, the aim of this study was to determine the awareness and attitude of the medical universities students and professors toward social determinants of health. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive-survey study was conducted on the students and professors of Isfahan and Kashan Universities of Medical Sciences in fields related to social determinants of health and at different educational levels in the years 2020–2021. Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire of awareness and attitude. Data were reported by descriptive statistics using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20. RESULTS: The average percentage of correct answers to awareness questions was 44% by professors and 33.3% by students. The overall mean score of professors’ attitude toward social determinants of health was 2.48 and students’ attitudes were 2.65 out of 5. Professors’ awareness about social determinants of health was more than students and their attitude was less positive than students. CONCLUSION: Considering that a significant percentage of effective factors in health outcomes are social determinants of health and bearing in mind that universities, especially medical universities in providing healthcare, maintaining, improving, and promoting the health of the community, and also training the necessary human resources in the health sector to provide services play an important role, officials and decision-makers in the Ministry of Health and universities should decide to define this issue in the educational curriculum as well as holding related workshops.