Abstract Background Social determinants of health determine the extent to which a person possesses the physical, social and personal resources to stay healthy and achieve personal aspirations, satisfy needs, and cope with the environment. Methods Data from a cross-sectional study - The 2013 National Health Survey in Serbia was used. The study involved 1840 women aged 20 years and over in the Province of Vojvodina. The research instrument was a specially designed questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression was implemented to assess the association between self-rated health as a dependent variable and social-demographic characteristics of women as independent variables (age, type of settlement, marital status, material status - DHS Wealth Index (WI), level of education, employment status, social support (Oslo-3 Social Support Scale), smoking and alcohol consumption. Results Out of a total 38.8% of women had a low level of education, according to WI 49.3% were poor, 21.9% were unemployed and 11.5% had poor social support. Every third woman was a smoker (31.9%) and 21.3% self-rated their health as poor. The number of women with poor health increased significantly with the decrease in social support, level of education and WI (from 14.3% among women with strong social support to 36.0% with poor social support, from 8.5% among highly educated to 31,4% among the low educated, from 11.1% among the rich to 24.4% among the poor). Multivariate logistic regression indicated that poor social support (OR = 3.96; 95%CI=2.34-6.70), low level of education (OR = 2.87; 95%CI=1.47-5.58), WI category of poor (OR = 1.77; 95%CI=1.10-2.84), ex smoking (OR = 2.49; 95%CI=1.51-4.08) and smoking (OR = 2.16; 95%CI=1.42-3.29) were significantly associated with poor self-rated health. Conclusions The research shows that there is a strong association between social determinants and self-rated health, which demands multi-disciplinary strategies to improve health and reduce health inequalities. Key messages Protecting the health of women is not only a basic human right, it is also crucial for health and economic development. Social determinants of health are leading causes of the health inequalities and demand an adequate health policy development at local, as well as at the national level.