In the last decade, research on Social Determinates of Health (SDoH) has influenced most areas of medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines SDoH as “the non-medical factors that influence health out-comes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life”(1). In 1998 the WHO quantified the impact of SDoH on health outcomes and disparities in healthcare (1).Dermatology is remarkably absent from the concept of SDoH. This is surprising, in view of the fact that skin diseases are highly social diseases, with an established occupational burden, and it may therefore be argued that dermatology should have pioneered research in SDoH. This, however, is not the case. We therefore call for research in SDoH in dermatology.
Keywords: SDoH, Social determinants of health, dermatology