November Research Round-Up

Our Research Round-Ups highlight recent research articles, reports, and commentaries on screening for and/or addressing social needs in clinical settings.

Research Articles

Identifying and Intervening on Social Needs in Clinical Settings: Evidence and Evidence Gaps
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, November 2019 Special Supplement

• Healthcare Sector Activities to Identify and Intervene on Social Risk: An Introduction to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine Supplement
  L.M. Gottlieb, K. Desalvo, & N.E. Adler
• Social Determinants as a Preventive Service: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Methods Considerations for Research
  A.H. Krist, K.W. Davidson, Q. Ngo-Metzger, & J. Mills
• Psychometric and Pragmatic Properties of Social Risk Screening Tools: A Systematic Review
  N.B. Henrikson, P.R. Blasi, K.D. Mettert, et al.
• Part I: A Quantitative Study of Social Risk Screening Acceptability in Patients and Caregivers
  E.H. De Marchis, D. Hessler, C. Fichtenberg, et al.
• Part II: A Qualitative Study of Social Risk Screening Acceptability in Patients and Caregivers
  E. Byhoff, E.H. De Marchis, D. Hessler, et al.
• Improving Social Needs Intervention Research: Key Questions for Advancing the Field
  C. Fichtenberg, D. Alley, & K. Mistry
• Health Center-Based Community-Supported Agriculture: An RCT
  S.A. Berkowitz, J. O'Neill, E. Sayer, et al.
• Variation in Electronic Health Record Documentation of Social Determinants of Health Across a National Network of Community Health Centers
  E.K. Cottrell, K. Dambrun, S. Cowburn, et al.
• Massachusetts Community-Based Organization Perspectives on Medicaid Redesign
  E. Byhoff & L.A. Taylor
• Payment Structures That Support Social Care Integration With Clinical Care: Social Deprivation Indices and Novel Payment Models
  A.N. Huffstetler & R.L. Phillips Jr.

Medical-Financial Partnerships: Cross-Sector Collaborations Between Medical and Financial Services to Improve Health
O.N. Bell, M.K. Hole, K. Johnson, L.E. Marcil, B.S. Solomon, & A. Schikedanz
Academic Pediatrics
This paper describes the rationale for medical-financial partnerships (MFPs) and examines eight MFPs providing financial services in health care settings.

Prevalence of Patient-Reported Social Risk Factors and Receipt of Assistance in Federally Funded Health Centers
E. De Marchis, M. Pantell, C. Fichtenberg, & L.M. Gottlieb
Journal of General Internal Medicine
This analysis of HRSA health center patient survey data found high prevalence of social risks and low reported rates of health-center-based social risk assistance. Patients in clinics with more enabling service staffing reported greater rates of assistance.

Capacity to Address Social Needs Affects Primary Care Clinician Burnout
A. Kung, T. Cheung, M. Knox, R. Willard-Grace, J. Halpern, J.N. Olayiwola, & L. Gottlieb
Annals of Family Medicine
In semi-structured interviews, primary care clinicians described various ways that increased clinic capacity to address patients’ social needs mitigates burnout.

Effectiveness of Community-Links Practitioners in Areas of High Socioeconomic Deprivation
S.W. Mercer, B. Fitzpatrick, L. Grant, et al.
Annals of Family Medicine
This quasi-experimental cluster-randomized control trial of a primary care-based social prescribing intervention in Glasgow, Scotland found no differences in health-related quality of life, well-being, depression, anxiety or exercise in patients who received referrals to community organizations.

Written Versus Verbal Food Insecurity Screening in One Primary Care Clinic
D. Palakshappa, M. Goodpasture, L. Albertini, C.L. Brown, & J.A. Skelton
Academic Pediatrics
Changing from a verbal to a written questionnaire resulted in an immediate increase in the number of parents/guardians who reported food insecurity.

Trends in the Use of Administrative Codes for Physical Abuse Hospitalizations
H.T. Puls, J.D. Anderst, A. Davidson, & M. Hall
JAMA Pediatrics
This analysis of the use of administrative codes for abuse hospitalizations across the transition from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM suggest instability in the use of administrative codes for the identification of abuse hospitalizations after the transition to ICD-10-CM.

Implementing an Electronic System to Screen and Actively Refer to Community Based Agencies for Food Insecurity in Primary Care
A.M. Smith, L. Zallman, K. Betts, et al.
Healthcare
This article describes a safety-net health system and food agency collaboration to implement a food insecurity screening and active referral process integrated into the electronic health record.

Home Gun Safety Queries in Well-Child Visits
C.H. Stipelman, G. Stoddard, K. Bata, B. Muniyappa, E. Trepman, & E. Smith
JAMA Pediatrics
Following the introduction of new EHR cues related to gun storage and smoke alarms, providers were less likely to ask caregivers about gun storage than about smoke alarms, and gun queries declined after mass shootings (while smoke alarm queries did not).

An Evidence-Based Strategy to Achieve Equivalency and Interoperability for Social-Behavioral Determinants of Health Assessment, Storage, Exchange, and Use
R.E. Wetta, R.D. Severin, & H. Gruhler
Health Informatics Journal
This article describes a strategy that permits scoring social and behavioral risk tools by domain to create interoperability and equivalency across tools, settings, and populations.

Reports & Commentaries

What Can the Health Care Sector Do to Advance Health Equity?
P. Braveman, L. Gottlieb, D. Francis, E. Arkin, & J. Acker
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
This report discusses how social inequities such as inequities in education, employment, housing, and structural racism result in poor health outcomes and high health care costs and describes current health care sector initiatives to advance health equity.

Assessing and Addressing Social Needs in Primary Care
C. Drake & H. Eisenson
NEJM Catalyst
This piece describes the implementation of a primary care-based social needs screening and referral intervention at Lincoln Community Health Center in North Carolina.

When Talking About Social Determinants, Precision Matters
K. Green & M. Zook
Health Affairs Blog
In this blog, the Health Care Transformation Task Force outlines their coalition's framework and five principles for health care industry leaders to keep in mind when discussing and implementing social risk or social determinant interventions.

New Trails Navigators and Roots Community Health Center: Putting Equity Into Practice Through Workforce Development
The National Center for Complex Health & Social Needs
This blog post describes two initiatives focused on improving health outcomes for vulnerable individuals, including those exiting incarceration, through workforce development programs.

Inventing Social Emergency Medicine: A Consensus Conference to Establish the Intellectual Underpinnings of Social Emergency Medicine
This Annals of Emergency Medicine supplemental issue is devoted to proceedings from a consensus conference on social emergency medicine. The included collection of essays and commentaries discuss the underpinnings and principles of social emergency medicine as a field of practice, and explore current activities, challenges, and future directions in expanding emergency medicine to include social context.