Six years ago, Palm Health Foundation made a risky decision. Dissatisfied with the short-term gains of traditional responsive grantmaking, we launched the Healthier Together initiative in an effort to forge a deeper connection to community through the social determinants of health.

Too often we stop at these social drivers of inequities, however, and miss the link between social determinants of health and their political roots. Every social determinant of health is preceded by a political action, inaction, or impetus. Political determinants of health create the social drivers—including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods, and lack of healthy food options—that affect all other dynamics of health.