Spring 2024 Newsletter

New results

SONNET's latest project sheds more light on the relationship between social risk and acute health care utilization

This new SONNET report summarizes findings that used data from Kaiser Permanente's National Social Health Surveys to assess how 3 specific social risks — financial strain, food insecurity, and housing instability — are related to emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations among members nationwide.

Key findings include:

Compared to members with no social risks, those with any of these 3 risks were 21% more likely to have an ED visit.
These 3 social risks were not significantly linked to higher likelihood of hospitalization.

SONNET Evaluation and Research Committee (ERC) member Morgan Clennin led this project in collaboration with colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research.

Read the report

View other SONNET reports on social risks and utilization.

Featured publications

Leveraging user-centered design in a web-based CME training on social health and social risk-informed care

Led by SONNET Associate Director Meagan Brown, this recent paper in The Permanente Journal describes a co-design process used at Kaiser Permanente to build an online continuing medical education (CME) course that illustrates how to provide social risk-informed care. The "Addressing Social Health in Medicine" course was built in collaboration with clinicians and members and uses real-world scenarios to provide examples of how clinicians can adjust patients' care plans to incorporate their social circumstances.

Meagan's coauthors are Andrea Paolino, Kathleen Barnes, Dea Papajorgji-Taylor, Loel Solomon, Cara Lewis, Elizabeth Bojkov, and Katie Coleman.

Read the paper

Data from Kaiser Permanente's National Social Health Surveys helps illustrate the link between housing instability and obesity

Published recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, this paper sheds light on the relationship between housing instability and obesity among a nationwide sample of nearly 6,400 adult members of Kaiser Permanente. SONNET ERC member Morgan Clennin led the analysis, which showed that members who experienced severe housing instability were nearly twice as likely to have severe obesity — independent of age, sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, and health status.

Morgan's coauthors are Liza Reifler, Olivia Goodman, Meagan Brown, Suma Vupputuri, Stacie Daugherty, and Mario Schootman.

Read the paper

Resources and opportunities

From our partners at the ACT Center: Resources for integrating health equity in research projects

Kaiser Permanente Washington's Center for Accelerating Care Transformation (ACT Center) recently released 2 new checklists to help support health equity in the design and conduct of health care research. These latest additions to the ACT Center's public resource library are designed to help research teams embed equity principles in studies and other activities that take place in a health care research environment. Both checklists are available to adopt or adapt for use in your specific setting.

The Checklist for Inclusive Communications provides guidance on language and design choices that promote inclusivity in communications to health care collaborators, patient partners, the scientific community, and the general public.

The Project Lifecycle Checklist on Integrating Health Equity covers key questions, example activities, and resources that can help ensure equity is integrated into all phases of a research project — from scoping and planning to analysis and dissemination.

From AHRQ: A guide for centering equity in digital health care technologies

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently developed evidence- and consensus-based resources to help health care organizations intentionally consider equity in the development and use of digital technologies. The Practical Guide for Implementing the Digital Healthcare Equity Framework provides digital health care developers and vendors, health care systems, clinical providers, and payers with an interactive checklist of steps and real-world examples for improving patient outcomes while advancing health equity.

View the guide

From our partners at SIREN: June 5 webinar on food security interventions

With growing evidence showing that food security interventions such as medically tailored meals and produce prescriptions can impact diet-related health conditions, health care organizations and payers are eager to learn more about how to guide investments in these interventions. Join the Social Interventions Research & Evaluation Network (SIREN) on Wednesday, June 5, for a webinar titled: "Where should healthcare invest in food security interventions? Lessons from recent research." The webinar takes place at 9 a.m. PT (noon ET), and registration is free.

What we're reading

New NEJM perspective piece calls for a renewed focus on equity in light of growing efforts to screen patients for social needs

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine serves as a reminder for health care organizations to keep sight of health equity outcomes as an increasing number of equity-focused initiatives turn their focus to social needs screening. In Keep Your Eyes on the Prize — Focusing on Health Care Equity, the authors assert that many health equity efforts have "shifted too far" toward social needs screening, drawing attention away from reforming care delivery and payment systems. They conclude that screening "should continue, but with attention to potential pitfalls, including overallocation of resources and energy to roles that health care systems aren’t structured to fill."

Read the article

Stay in touch

We'd love to hear what you're working on! Email our team: sonnet@kp.org.

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Our SONNET Coordinating Center would like to acknowledge that our Seattle offices are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People.