Implementing social interventions in primary care

Most family physicians now report that they engage in some degree of social intervention in the management of patients. However, outside of community health centres, social interventions are still not a routine part of primary care practice and are not yet considered “standard of care.” Traditional primary care seldom included interventions such as social prescribing and health–legal partnerships until the early 1990s, and some practitioners still question whether social intervention is part of the primary care provider’s role. A small cadre of practitioners in high-income countries, including Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, has been at the forefront of developing and evaluating interventions into social risks to health, which has led to a few social interventions being widely adopted, with positive impacts on broad markers of health.