REVIEW article
Front. Epidemiol.
Sec. Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology
Molecular Connections Between Inflammation and Social Determinants of Health
Provisionally accepted
Ian Antheni Myles*
Aditi VijendraClaire Kunkle
Jalin Jordan
Anna EricksonKingsley Osei-Karikari
Grace Ratley- NIAID, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, United States
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Chronic inflammatory diseases such as autoimmune disorders, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the industrialized world. Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities bear a disproportionately high burden of these inflammatory diseases. This review synthesizes evidence linking various domains of the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH)—economic stability, education access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context—to inflammatory pathways and mechanisms. Across domains, biological mechanisms such as cytokine dysregulation, toll-like receptor (TLR) activation, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis alterations and gut microbiome disruption act together to sustain proinflammatory states that drive adverse health outcomes in marginalized communities. Although causality is obscured by interrelated determinants, identifying inflammation as a shared pathway between various determinants highlights the need for structural interventions to reduce chronic disease burden.
Keywords: Social determinansts of health, pollution, Inflammation, Environmental juctice, disparities
Received: 12 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Myles, Vijendra, Kunkle, Jordan, Erickson, Osei-Karikari and Ratley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ian Antheni Myles, mylesi@niaid.nih.gov
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.