Better together? Learning to align medical, social, and public health systems to promote health equity

Abundant evidence confirms the powerful influences that social and economic factors exert on health status across the life-span. The programs and services designed to address these factors, such as housing and income assistance, are disconnected from mainstream health services. As a result, formal health systems frequently fail to improve patient outcomes because clinical services alone cannot fully address the social, environmental, and economic factors underlying poor health. The fragmentation between formal health systems and social services has been further exacerbated by federal funding cuts for Medicaid, public health programs, and social service programs.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation created the Systems for Action (S4A) research program in 2015 to better understand these issues. Studies supported by S4A evaluate mechanisms to align health systems’ resources and operations on shared priorities to improve population health and advance health equity.