Pediatric Academic Societies 2017 Annual Meeting Recap from Laura Gottlieb, SIREN Director

I was thrilled to see that the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Francisco May 6-9 had a very strong showing for social prescribing* research. There were over 50 posters and presentations related to social determinants of health at this year’s conference, the majority of which focused on clinical interventions around food, housing, financial, and utilities security. At the leading edge were presentations from Devan Jaganath, who shared needs assessment work done at Johns Hopkins around financial services interventions and Lucy Marcil who presented on Street Cred, a Boston-based program that connects low-income families with free tax preparation services. Many existing interventions around food, housing, utilities, employment, and other social domains mitigate the impacts of poverty; these projects are exciting additions that provide more tools to help providers implement the National Academy of Medicine’s recommendation to incorporate screening for financial strain into clinical care activities. It will be exciting to see more research on all of these social prescribing programs to better understand their impacts on children and families.

Overall, PAS was a great opportunity to see many SIREN colleagues. In the meantime, looking forward to seeing some of you at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in New Orleans next month.

Best,
Laura Gottlieb

*Social prescribing is a term used in the UK to refer to non-medical referral options for clinical providers. Read more about SIREN-related work in the UK here.