In the midst of the country’s political and climatic maelstrom, SIREN’s National Research Meeting in San Diego this month provided a much-needed reprieve. It felt restorative to be surrounded by people driving to improve health equity in the US. Our team certainly appreciated the opportunity to dive deeply into the increasingly rigorous field of health services and policy research related to social care – and to simultaneously think together about the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. 

We returned to work buoyed by the degree to which all attendees and speakers leaned in, lifting both each other’s spirits and work. 

For those who were not able to join us in person this year (or who just want to share the good times with family, friends, and friends who are like family) fear not! We plan to release many conference materials in days ahead, including audio/ slides from our research presenters as well as keynote videos and podcasts. As these become available, we will signpost where to find them in the SIREN Evidence and Resource Library. 

As a teaser, below we link to the final plenary discussion with health and social care pioneers Damon Francis, Monica Soni, Palav Babaria, and Sanjay Basu, who not only describe multiple social care initiatives being taken to scale but also offer their insights about what it means to do this work in the context of the new federal administration. The frank conversation with these changemakers was an inspiration. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Systems for Action: 2025 Call for Proposals: Community-Led Systems Research to Address Systemic Racism
This funding opportunity will provide up to $200,000 for one-year community-led feasibility studies of new interventions designed to dismantle and disrupt forms of systemic racism through the alignment of medical, social, and public health systems. Proposals are due on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, at 3pm ET. Click here for more details.

Addressing Violence and Trauma Topical PCORI Funding Announcement
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) intends to issue a Topical PCORI Funding Announcement (PFA) on April 1, 2025, seeking to fund high-quality, patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) projects that focus on addressing violence and trauma.  Letters of Intent are due on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 5pm ET. Click here for more details.

Webinars

Systems for Action: 2025 Systems for Action Call for Proposals | Informational Webinar #2 – February 24, 2025 | 10am PT/ 1pm ET

HealthBegins: Complying in Advance: Understanding Risks and Opportunities for Health Equity Work In a Time of Uncertainty – February 25, 2025 | 10am PT/ 1pm ET

Manatt Health: Health Policy in 2025: Changes for U.S. and U.K. Digital Health and Life Sciences Industries – March 13, 2025 | 9am PT/ 12pm ET

Meetings & Conferences

NCEAS 2025 Annual Conference: Healthcare Delivery Steps Up to Social Care: Implications for Health Professions Education – February 24-25, 2025 | virtual

The Rise Summit on SDoH: Building Healthy Communities to Enable Whole Person Health – April 7-9, 2025 | Louisvile, KY

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: CMS Health Equity Conference – April 23-24, 2025 | Bethesda, MD & virtual

American Hospital Association: Accelerating Health Equity Conference – May 19-22, 2025 | Baltimore, MD | Early bird registration ends March 31, 2025.

AcademyHealth 2025 Annual Research Meeting – June 7-10, 2025 |  Minneapolis, MN |

Camden Coalition: Putting Care At the Center Annual Conference – October 15-17, 2025 | Portland OR | Workshop presentation applications are open until March 7, 2025; Applications for Beehive stations are open until May 7, 2025.

ICF: Medicare and Medicaid Move Upstream to Address Social Determinants of Health – Originally broadcast January 7, 2025

Systems for Action: Aligning Health and Social Systems to Promote Vaccination Access for Populations Experiencing Systemic Barriers – Originally broadcast January 8, 2025

Center for Health Care Strategies: Medicaid Nutrition Supports: Implementation Innovations – Originally broadcast January 9, 2025

SIREN and the Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School: State Medicaid Program Requirements for Community Reinvestment: Will They Improve Health? – Originally broadcast January 14, 2025

Systems for Action: Triumphs, Wounds, and Bruises: A Retrospective on Systems for Action Research for Food Security – Originally broadcast February 12, 2025

Below we share multiple SIREN-relevant articles published since the last newsletter. For a full list, see the SIREN Evidence and Resource Library. As always, if you are aware of resources that you think should be added to the library, please send them our way.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Awareness 

The Combined and Comparative Impacts of Financial Incentives Versus Practice Facilitation Implementation Support for Social Risk Screening in Community Health Centers Hessler D, Marino M, Kaufmann J, et al. | Health Services Research

Extracting Housing and Food Insecurity Information from Clinical Notes Using cTAKES Kim MH, Miramontes S, Mehta S, et al. | Health Services Research

Hospital Involvement in Screening for and Addressing Patients' Health-Related Social Needs Singh SR, Hogg-Graham R | Medical Care Research and Review

Continuous Quality Improvement in Social Needs Screening: Evaluation of an Intervention in Bariatric Specialty Care Chang C, Cooley S, Iott B, Greene J, Muthukuda D, Tipirneni R | Journal for Healthcare Quality

Individuals' Desire for Social Needs Sharing Among Healthcare Providers: Findings from the 2022 Health Information National Trends Survey Olvera RG, Swoboda CM, Joseph JJ, Bose-Brill S, McAlearney AS, Walker DM | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Assistance

Screening and Referral for Social Needs Among Veterans: A Randomized Controlled Trial Gurewich D, Hunt K, Bokhour B, et al. | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Association of Hospital-Based Social Needs Interventions with Potentially Preventable Admissions Knox MJ, Brewster AL, Ahern J, Shortell SM, Hague EL, Rodriguez HP | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Getting Inside Closed-Loop Referrals: Exploring the Patient Experience of Finding and Connecting to Social Care with a Community Resource Referral System Using a Community-Based Participatory Approach Olson AW, Allen N, Elmayan A, et al. | Health Services Research

A Human-Centered Approach for Designing a Social Care Referral Platform Haynes D, Cheng P, Weaver M, Parsons H, Karaca-Mandic P | Applied Clinical Informatics

Identification of Social Risk-Related Referrals in Discrete Primary Care Electronic Health Record Data: Lessons Learned from a Novel Methodology Dankovchik J, Gold R, Ochoa A, et al. | Health Services Research

Care Coordination: How Is It Implemented and Is It Different If a Social Worker Is on the Team? Solberg LI, JaKa MM, Knowlton GS, et al. | Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

Addressing Health-Related Social Needs During COVID-19 Through a Hospital-Based, Community Health Worker Program: A Case Study Petruzzi LJ, Garza B, Patel S, et al. | Health Promotion Practice

We Rely on Relationships: Homeless Service Providers' Experiences in Coordinating Care Transitions During COVID-19 Anderson AJ, Bowen E | Professional Case Management

Onsite Primary Care to Address Medical Needs Among Permanent Supportive Housing Tenants: A Feasibility Demonstration Project Redline B, Nusser J, Brill J, Brown P, Ichiki S, Chan B | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Health-Related Social Needs Intervention for Adolescents and Young Adults with Type 2 Diabetes and Their Caregivers: An Exploratory Study Using Human-Centered Design Ragavan MI, Hewitt B, Mickievicz E, et al. | Community Health Equity Research & Policy

Material Goods Provided in Pediatric Primary Care Clinics: A Landscape Analysis Lutz MR, Tyrrell H, Sharifi M, et al. | Academic Pediatrics

Supporting Primary Care for Medically and Socially Complex Patients in Medicaid Managed Care Ash AS, Alcusky MJ, Ellis RP, Sabatino MJ, Eanet FE, Mick EO | JAMA Network Open

Food interventions

Development of a Statewide Network Hub for Screening, Referral, and Enrollment into Food as Medicine Programs Across Kentucky Mayfield C, Lauckner C, Bush J, Cosson E, Batey L, Gustafson A | Frontiers in Public Health

Implementing Food as Medicine During COVID-19: Produce Prescriptions and Integrative Group Medical Visits in Federally Qualified Health Centers Thompson-Lastad A, Ruvalcaba D, Chen WT, et al. | Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health

Amplifying Lived Expertise on "Food Is Medicine" in the Mississippi Delta's Legacy of Racism Nicholson-Robinson V, Krobath DM, Dixit-Joshi S, et al. | American Journal of Public Health

Lack of Follow-Up in a Food-Insecure Population Domangue EE, Dubuisson E, Davis G, Ardoin T | American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine

Issue Brief

Considerations for Documenting and Sharing Health-Related Social Needs Information in Pediatric Care Settings Bouchelle Z, Brown R, McPeak K, et al | Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia PolicyLab

Commentaries & Blogs

The One Taboo Question Alpert JM, Hurwitz HM, Rothberg MB | Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

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