The importance of physician advocacy.

Advocacy for improved health of populations is recognized as a central tenet of medical practice and endorsed as a societal obligation and professional responsibility.1 To meaningfully affect patient outcomes on both individual and population levels, physician engagement in the broader social and environmental systems influencing health is necessary.2 Only a minority of all health outcomes can be altered or modified by direct clinical care whereas a vast majority are owing to a patient's broader social and structural determinants of health, which are affected by legislative decisions.