Is 2021 really about to be in the rearview mirror? What a blur!! In case you missed any big news this year, this month’s newsletter starts with a look back at the year’s research.
In 2021, COVID-19 continued to expose the ongoing tragic links between health outcomes and endemic, enduring racism and classism, which powerfully affect people’s everyday lives and their lifelong opportunities. In the health care sector, our sinusoidal journey through the pandemic has led to both new and renewed commitments to intervening on social adversity as one part of more comprehensive strategies for improving equity. COVID spurred interest, investments, and innovations in social screening. Those innovations came not only around what to screen for (including expanded interest in experiences of racism, digital access, childcare, social connectedness, transportation access, and employment benefits) but also how to screen for them, (e.g. screening via telephone and chatbots.) The innovation is helping to clarify whether, who, how, and what screening to incorporate into health care settings. There surely is some fine-tuning left to do, though signals from CMS and several states suggest policymakers are gearing up to better incentivize screening activities, e.g. by including quality measures related to screening for the first time in CMS’ Measures Under Consideration.
In parallel, we also are learning hand-over-fist about effective and efficient ways for health care systems to act on newly collected social risk information in ways that can improve health outcomes. We were intrigued by the first report from CMS’ Accountable Health Communities demonstration, which indicated some promising findings about the impacts of social services screening and referrals on health care utilization for Medicare fee-for-service members. (And now we are eagerly anticipating next year’s follow up report, which will include loads more data about impacts on Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.) Systematic review projects out this year from PCORI and USPSTF indicate that evidence on screening and referral programs is growing though not yet conclusive. But both practitioners and increasingly payers are broadening investments in programs to connect patients with social services because it is intuitively the right thing to do. (Cue a new crop of ACO, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage articles on social care program impacts and opportunities.) The tools available to document both screening and interventions are expanding, too (hint: search for “The Gravity Project” on this site at the National Library of Medicine.) Alongside this work, we appreciated flashing warnings from the Nonprofit Finance Fund about how these kinds of initiatives may affect community-based organizations. And along those lines, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that in 2021 we saw consistent growth in community resource referral platform investments—we’re hoping 2022 is the year rigorous evaluations help us understand social, health, and financial returns on these big investments.
And, of course, we ourselves think that the brilliant line-up in the SIREN Coffee and Science series is worth a listen. The series engaged thought leaders from across the US to share their ideas about where we have gotten it both right and wrong around social care integration—and what we can do better.
Alright, team. That’s our brief scoop. But avid readers never fear! We added 390 papers to the SIREN Evidence and Resource Library this year for a grand total of 1,789 in the ERL. Surely that could keep you busy….
—Your SIREN friends
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Thank You for Joining SIREN Coffee & Science
We held the Coffee & Science Wrap Party on December 3rd. If you missed the fun, you can always listen to the recording via the SIREN Coffee & Science podcast channel (on the web or your favorite podcast app). We want to thank all of our guests, speakers and audience members alike, who joined us every other Friday throughout 2021. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the series as well as your suggestions for future events. Please fill out our short survey here.
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December Research Round-Up
In this month’s Research Round-Up, we’ve decided to switch things up! Click here to see this month's Research Round-up on our website. As always, all the articles in the round-up (and more!) can be found in the SIREN Evidence and Resource Library.
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Upcoming Events
Webinars
Meetings & Conferences
AcademyHealth: 2022 Health Datapalooza and National Health Policy Conference – April 4-5, 2022 | Arlington, VA
Society of General Internal Medicine: 2022 Annual Meeting – April 6-9, 2022 | Orlando, FL
Call for abstracts open until January 4, 2022. Click here for detailed information.
Pediatric Academic Societies: 2022 Meeting – April 21-25, 2022 | Denver, CO
Call for abstracts open until January 5, 2022. Click here for detailed information.
AHA Community Health Improvement: Accelerating Health Equity Conference 2022 – May 10-12, 2022 | Cleveland, OH
AcademyHealth: 2022 Annual Research Meeting – June 4-7, 2022 | Washington, DC
Call for abstracts open until January 11, 2022 at 2pm PT/ 5pm ET. Click here for detailed information.
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