SIREN is excited to announce that we will host an in-person National Research Meeting in the first quarter of 2025. Our hope is to convene not only social care researchers, but also patients who have had experience with social care, partners from community-based organizations, healthcare’s social care leaders and practitioners, and a wide range of policymakers. We are currently soliciting conference sponsors. For more information about sponsorship, please email siren@ucsf.edu.

Feb 28th @ 9am PT/12pm ET: What Should the Healthcare Sector’s Role Be in Addressing Adverse Social Drivers of Health?

How much should the healthcare sector be involved in addressing adverse social circumstances? Join us on February 28th at 9am PT/12pm ET for a conversation with Drs. Seth Berkowitz, Sherry Glied, and Stacy Lindau as they grapple with where to draw boundaries for the healthcare sector’s investments in social drivers of health.

March 11th @ 9am PT/12pm ET: SIREN’s New Social Care Conceptual Model

Join us for a conversation about the new SIREN Social Care Conceptual Model! Emerging evidence suggests that social care programs do not affect health solely by connecting patients with social services and reducing socioeconomic barriers. In a recent paper, we used this evidence to develop a model that depicts the multiple pathways through which social care interventions appear to operate. Join SIREN co-directors Laura Gottlieb, Danielle Hessler, and Caroline Fichtenberg on March 11th at 9am PT/12pm ET for a discussion about the new model and its implications for future program investments and evaluations. 

Multi-Sectoral Preventive Interventions Research Network to Address Social Determinants of Health in Populations that Experience Health Disparities
The NIH is seeking applications for a new collaborative research network to test multi-sectoral preventive interventions for health conditions in populations that experience health disparities (PAR-24-053), along with a coordinating center (RFA-OD-24-006 ). Applications for both funding opportunities are due August 5, 2024.

Webinars

Upcoming SIREN webinars (see above)

Dialogue 4 Health: Linking Patients to WIC and Other Food Safety Net Programs: Perspectives from Health Care – February 26, 2024 | 8am PT/ 11am ET

Health Leads: Investing in Referral Networks to Advance Racial Health Equity | Part Two: Developing Community Partnerships to Transform CRN Infrastructure – February 29, 2024 | 10am PT/ 1pm ET

Meetings & Conferences

American Hospital Association: Accelerating Health Equity Conference – May 7-9, 2024 | Kansas City, MO | Registration open

CIE San Diego: 8th Annual CIE Summit – June 24-26, 2024 | San Diego, CA | Registration open

AcademyHealth: 2024 Annual Research Meeting – June 29-July 2, 2024 | Baltimore, MD | Call for late-breaking abstracts open until March 26, 2024

The Root Cause Coalition’s 9th Annual National Summit on Social Drivers of Health – October 6-8, 2024 | Baltimore, MD | Call for proposals open through March 8, 2024

Camden Coalition Putting Care at the Center 2024 – October 16-18, 2024 | Pittsburgh, PA | Applications for Beehive stations open until May 9, 2024

NAPCRG Annual Meeting – November 20-24, 2024 | Quebec, Canada | Call for abstracts open until April 21, 2024

Below is a list of recently published research related to integrating social and medical care (and in some cases we have provided summaries of the results). See more articles like these in the searchable SIREN Evidence Library. As always, if you are aware of resources you think should be added to the Evidence Library, please send them our way!

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Awareness

A Secondary Data Analysis of Technology Access as a Determinant of Health and Impediment in Social Needs Screening and Referral Processes Bybee SG, Sharareh N, Guo JW, et al. | AJPM Focus

Using Natural Language Processing to Study Homelessness Longitudinally with Electronic Health Record Data Subject to Irregular Observations Chapman AB, Scharfstein DO, Montgomery AE, et al. | AMIA Annual Symposium Procedures

Structured and Unstructured Social Risk Factor Documentation in the Electronic Health Record Underestimates Patients' Self-Reported Risks Iott BE, Rivas S, Gottlieb LM, Adler-Milstein J, Pantell MS | Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association

A Brief Tool to Screen Patients for Precarious Employment: A Validation Study Ho JW, Bellicoso E, Bondy M, et al. | Annals of Family Medicine

Improving Food Insecurity Screening Across a Health System Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic Kroese L, Lobo K, Meyer M, et al. | BMJ Open Quality

Bundling Colorectal Cancer Screening Outreach with Screening for Social Risk in Federally Qualified Health Centers: A Stepped-Wedge Implementation-Effectiveness Study Kruse GR, Percac-Lima S, Barber-Dubois M, et al. | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Screening for Unstable Housing in a Healthcare Setting Ng R, Gunatillaka N, Skouteris H, et al. | Public Health Reviews

Family Medicine Team Perspectives on Screening for Health-Related Social Needs
Porterfield L, Jan QH, Jones F, et al. | Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

The Relationship Between Perceptions of Electronic Health Record Usability and Clinical Importance of Social and Environmental Determinants of Health on Provider Documentation Sood N, Stetter C, Kunselman A, Jasani S | PLOS Digital Health

Topic Modeling on Clinical Social Work Notes for Exploring Social Determinants of Health Factors Sun S, Zack T, Williams CYK, Sushil M, Butte AJ | JAMIA Open

Social Determinants of Health Screening in Type 1 Diabetes Management Yayah Jones NH, Cole I, Hart KJ, et al. | Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America

Assistance

Participation of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Veteran-Centric Community-Based Service Navigation Networks: A Mixed Methods Study Hausmann LRM, Goodrich DE, Rodriguez KL, et al. | Health Services Research

Pilot Implementation of a Nutrition-Focused Community-Health-Worker Intervention among Formerly Chronically Homeless Adults in Permanent Supportive Housing Hamilton JE, Guevara DC, Steinfeld SF, et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

US Medical-Legal Partnerships to Address Health-Harming Legal Needs: Closing the Health Injustice Gap Johnson DY, Asay S, Keegan G, et al. | Journal of General Internal Medicine

Beyond Medicine: Bridging the Gap Between Health and Wealth in Pediatric Primary Care Marcil LE, Bredy GS, De Los Rios I, Sokoloff G, Bair-Merritt MH | Academic Pediatrics

Housing interventions

Addressing Housing-Related Social Needs Through Medicaid: Lessons From North Carolina's Healthy Opportunities Pilots Program Huber K, Nohria R, Nandagiri V, et al. | Health Affairs

'Housing First' Increased Psychiatric Care Office Visits and Prescriptions While Reducing Emergency Visits Hanson D, Gillespie S | Health Affairs

Primary Care-Based Housing Program Reduced Outpatient Visits; Patients Reported Mental and Physical Health Benefits Arbour M, Fico P, Atwood S, et al. | Health Affairs

Alignment

Insights From Implementation of a Community-Based Model for Collaborative Public Good Investing Taylor LA, Nichols LM | Health Affairs

Commentaries & Blogs

Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, and other Large Language Models for Social Determinants of Health: Current State and Future Directions Ong JCL, Seng BJJ, Law JZF, et al. | Cell Reports Medicine

Homelessness and Health: Factors, Evidence, Innovations That Work, And Policy Recommendations Garcia C, Doran K, Kushel M.| Health Affairs

Reducing WIC Administrative Burdens to Promote Health Equity Agyapong E, Vasan A, Anyigbo C | JAMA Pediatrics

Social Needs Screening in Primary Care: A Tool in the Fight for Health Equity? Painter H, Parry E, McCann L, Dehn Lunn A, Ford J. | Public Health in Practice

Issue Briefs and Reports

Improve Outcomes Through Whole-Person Health: A Guide to Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Patients | Humana

Food Insecurity Screening/Referral Toolkit: A Guide to Screening Individuals and Referring to Resources for Help, Designed for Both Healthcare and Non-Healthcare Professionals  | Humana

Associations between Social Adversity and Biomarkers of Inflammation, Stress, and Aging in Children Pantell MS, Silveira PP, de Mendonça Filho EJ, et al. | Pediatric Research

February Issue: Housing & Health | Health Affairs