Hi! We are developing demographic profiles of each of our counties and are struggling to differentiate between some demographics and SDOH. For example housing. This isn’t necessarily a data equity question, but thought a group of data people might have some insights!
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Hey @Hadrake this is an excellent question. I think there are a lot of different ways to think about it, and different philosophies will lead to different ways to deal with this type of data.
In my way of thinking, Demographics describe who someone is — relatively stable attributes that classify a person or population. Age, race/ethnicity, sex, household composition, language spoken. These answer “who lives here?”
SDOH describe the conditions in which people live, work, and age — the structural and environmental factors that shape health outcomes. These answer “what conditions are they living in?”
Housing specifically straddles both, and the way to split it cleanly is to ask whether a variable describes a characteristic of the person/household or a condition affecting the person/household:
Demographic-side housing variables: tenure (owner vs. renter), household size, household type (family/non-family), number of units in structure where someone lives. These are descriptors of the household.
SDOH-side housing variables: housing cost burden (>30% of income on housing), severe cost burden (>50%), overcrowding (>1 person per room), housing quality issues (lacking plumbing/kitchen, incomplete utilities), housing instability (evictions, frequent moves), homelessness, lead exposure risk, proximity to environmental hazards. These are conditions that affect health.