Revising the logic model behind health care's social care investments

The shared logic model behind these “social care” policies and the many programs they have spawned is that screening for social risk factors (e.g., food, housing, or transportation insecurity) and referring patients who endorse social risks to social services is that patients experiencing social barriers to health promotion and disease management will receive social services and that those services will help patients reduce or resolve social needs. From there, the assumption is that any changes in patients’ social needs will in turn contribute to improved health.

This article summarizes recent evidence on how increased awareness of patients' social conditions in the health care sector may influence health and health care utilization outcomes. Using this evidence, we propose a more expansive logic model to explain the impacts of social care programs and inform future social care program investments and evaluations.