To screen or not to screen? Future considerations for social care intervention delivery

We still have a long journey ahead in learning how best to integrate social care within pediatric care, and the study by Cullen et al is a helpful step along this journey. Perhaps the missing link between screening or simply offering resource information and family receipt of services (aside from a critical expansion of funding for the social safety net) will be the additional context obtained through meaningful and emphatic conversations and human-to-human support. However we learn that families want information on social resources (whether from screening, resource menus, etc), if we are able to build trust, connect families to the resources they desire, and then successfully support families as they navigate through those resources, health care can be an integral piece of the solution to equitably address families’ social needs, further advancing child and population health.