Browsing by Subject "social determinants of health"
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Item Open Access A Tailored SMS Text Message-Based Intervention to Facilitate Patient Access to Referred Community-Based Social Needs Resources: Protocol for a Pilot Feasibility and Acceptability Study.(JMIR research protocols, 2022-10) Lian, Tyler; Reid, Hadley; Rader, Abigail; Dewitt-Feldman, Sarah; Hezarkhani, Elmira; Gu, Elizabeth; Scott, Malik; Scott, Malik; Kutzer, Kate; Sandhu, Sahil; Crowder, Carolyn; Ito, Kristin; Eisenson, Howard; Bettger, Janet Prvu; Shaw, Ryan J; Lewinski, Allison A; Ming, David Y; Bosworth, Hayden B; Zullig, Leah L; Batch, Bryan C; Drake, ConnorBackground
Health care providers are increasingly screening patients for unmet social needs (eg, food, housing, transportation, and social isolation) and referring patients to relevant community-based resources and social services. Patients' connection to referred services is often low, however, suggesting the need for additional support to facilitate engagement with resources. SMS text messaging presents an opportunity to address barriers related to contacting resources in an accessible, scalable, and low-cost manner.Objective
In this multi-methods pilot study, we aim to develop an automated SMS text message-based intervention to promote patient connection to referred social needs resources within 2 weeks of the initial referral and to evaluate its feasibility and patient acceptability. This protocol describes the intervention, conceptual underpinnings, study design, and evaluation plan to provide a detailed illustration of how SMS technology can complement current social needs screening and referral practice patterns without disrupting care.Methods
For this pilot prospective cohort study, this SMS text message-based intervention augments an existing social needs screening, referral, and navigation program at a federally qualified health center. Patients who received at least one referral for any identified unmet social need are sent 2 rounds of SMS messages over 2 weeks. The first round consists of 5-10 messages that deliver descriptions of and contact information for the referred resources. The second round consists of 2 messages that offer a brief reminder to contact the resources. Participants will evaluate the intervention via a survey and a semistructured interview, informed by an adapted technology acceptance model. Rapid qualitative and thematic analysis will be used to extract themes from the responses. Primary outcomes are implementation feasibility and patient acceptability. Secondary outcomes relate to intervention effectiveness: self-reported attempt to connect and successful connection to referred resources 2 weeks after the initial referral encounter.Results
The study received regulatory approval in May 2021, and we anticipate enrolling 15-20 participants for this initial pilot.Conclusions
This protocol presents detailed implementation methods about a novel automated SMS intervention for social care integration within primary care. By sharing the study protocol early, we intend to facilitate the development and adoption of similar tools across different clinical settings, as more health care providers seek to address the unmet social needs of patients. Study findings will provide practical insights into the design and implementation of SMS text message-based interventions to improve social and medical care coordination.International registered report identifier (irrid)
DERR1-10.2196/37316.Item Open Access Defining the Need for Causal Inference to Understand the Impact of Social Determinants of Health: A Primer on Behalf of the Consortium for the Holistic Assessment of Risk in Transplantation (CHART).(Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches, 2023-12) Bhavsar, Nrupen A; Patzer, Rachel E; Taber, David J; Ross-Driscoll, Katie; Deierhoi Reed, Rhiannon; Caicedo-Ramirez, Juan C; Gordon, Elisa J; Matsouaka, Roland A; Rogers, Ursula; Webster, Wendy; Adams, Andrew; Kirk, Allan D; McElroy, Lisa MObjective
This study aims to introduce key concepts and methods that inform the design of studies that seek to quantify the causal effect of social determinants of health (SDOH) on access to and outcomes following organ transplant.Background
The causal pathways between SDOH and transplant outcomes are poorly understood. This is partially due to the unstandardized and incomplete capture of the complex interactions between patients, their neighborhood environments, the tertiary care system, and structural factors that impact access and outcomes. Designing studies to quantify the causal impact of these factors on transplant access and outcomes requires an understanding of the fundamental concepts of causal inference.Methods
We present an overview of fundamental concepts in causal inference, including the potential outcomes framework and direct acyclic graphs. We discuss how to conceptualize SDOH in a causal framework and provide applied examples to illustrate how bias is introduced.Results
There is a need for direct measures of SDOH, increased measurement of latent and mediating variables, and multi-level frameworks for research that examine health inequities across multiple health systems to generalize results. We illustrate that biases can arise due to socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and incongruencies in language between the patient and clinician.Conclusions
Progress towards an equitable transplant system requires establishing causal pathways between psychosocial risk factors, access, and outcomes. This is predicated on accurate and precise quantification of social risk, best facilitated by improved organization of health system data and multicenter efforts to collect and learn from it in ways relevant to specialties and service lines.Item Embargo Exploring Racial Disparities in Cancer Care Among Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia: The Double-Edged Sword?(2024) Caviness-Ashe, NicoleBackground: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare blood cancer affecting white blood cells, currently impacts approximately 20,380 people living in the U.S. Currently, the 5-year survival rate of AML is 31.7% with Black patients experiencing higher rates of mortality compared to White patients. Black patients have been disproportionately impacted by socioeconomic distress related to historical trauma, social injustices, higher levels of poverty, minimal insurance coverage, and experience higher cancer burden compared to Whites. However, additional research is needed to understand factors that may have contributed to racial disparities among adults with AML. The impact of the cancer care system on health disparities among Black patients has not been well described in the literature. The purpose of this dissertation is to increase understanding of racial disparities in adults with AML and explore factors that may impact disparate outcomes among Black patients.
Methods: A literature review, a qualitative study and a secondary data analysis were used to understand racial disparities in AML and factors that contribute to poor outcomes. The literature review was completed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 statement to explore disparities in health outcomes among adult survivors of acute leukemias. A total of twenty-five full text published articles were analyzed and included in the synthesis. A qualitative descriptive design was used to explore barriers and facilitators of navigating the cancer care system among a sample of 16 Black adult patients treated with AML at a large comprehensive cancer center. Study findings were analyzed using thematic analysis. Interviews were recorded and coded by two independent coders using Braun and Clark’s method of thematic analysis. A secondary data analysis of cancer registry data was conducted to assess the impact of facility type on the relationship between race and cancer health outcomes (i.e., time to death and time to hematopoietic stem cell transplant) among a sample of 1201 patients with AML. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the structure of the dataset and assess the distribution of the variables. Bivariate analysis was used to examine the differences in facility types across race. Mediation analysis was used to test the mediation effect of facility type on the relationships between race and the health outcomes (time to death and time to HSCT).Results: Identifying as Black, having Hispanic ethnicity, being male, older age, living in areas of high poverty, lack health insurance, and having Medicaid as primary insurance were least favorable conditions for survival among adult AML patients. However, there were limited published qualitative studies exploring the experience of navigating cancer care among adult Black patients with AML. There were also limited published quantitative studies examining causal factors of health disparities among Black patients with AML. The qualitative descriptive study found that Black patients perceived barriers to positive cancer care experiences were discriminatory practices and scarcity in available matched hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) donors. However, social support, patient-centered care, and empathy from others were perceived as facilitators to care. The secondary data analysis provided evidence the type of facility patients present to for cancer screening may not facility the relationship between race and health outcomes time to death and time to HSCT; however, structural racism does facility this relationship. More research is needed to identify how access to cancer care may contribute to structural racism.
Conclusion: Findings from this dissertation provide empirical data for expanding our understanding factors of the existing racial disparities in cancer care, barriers and facilitators to successful navigation of the cancer care system for Black patients and evidence to identify factors that contribute to structural racism within cancer care. Improving educational curriculum to help clinicians identify signs and symptoms of AML in smaller healthcare and primary care settings, improving insurance coverage for AML treatments and supportive care needs, increasing disease-specific cancer care navigators or social workers, and developing pathways to care for diagnosing AML may be needed to mitigate racial disparities in AML.
Item Open Access Social risk factors predicting outcomes of cervical myelopathy surgery.(Journal of neurosurgery. Spine, 2022-01) Rethorn, Zachary D; Cook, Chad E; Park, Christine; Somers, Tamara; Mummaneni, Praveen V; Chan, Andrew K; Pennicooke, Brenton H; Bisson, Erica F; Asher, Anthony L; Buchholz, Avery L; Bydon, Mohamad; Alvi, Mohammed Ali; Coric, Domagoj; Foley, Kevin T; Fu, Kai-Ming; Knightly, John J; Meyer, Scott; Park, Paul; Potts, Eric A; Shaffrey, Christopher I; Shaffrey, Mark; Than, Khoi D; Tumialan, Luis; Turner, Jay D; Upadhyaya, Cheerag D; Wang, Michael Y; Gottfried, OrenObjective
Combinations of certain social risk factors of race, sex, education, socioeconomic status (SES), insurance, education, employment, and one's housing situation have been associated with poorer pain and disability outcomes after lumbar spine surgery. To date, an exploration of such factors in patients with cervical spine surgery has not been conducted. The objective of the current work was to 1) define the social risk phenotypes of individuals who have undergone cervical spine surgery for myelopathy and 2) analyze their predictive capacity toward disability, pain, quality of life, and patient satisfaction-based outcomes.Methods
The Cervical Myelopathy Quality Outcomes Database was queried for the period from January 2016 to December 2018. Race/ethnicity, educational attainment, SES, insurance payer, and employment status were modeled into unique social phenotypes using latent class analyses. Proportions of social groups were analyzed for demonstrating a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) of 30% from baseline for disability, neck and arm pain, quality of life, and patient satisfaction at the 3-month and 1-year follow-ups.Results
A total of 730 individuals who had undergone cervical myelopathy surgery were included in the final cohort. Latent class analysis identified 2 subgroups: 1) high risk (non-White race and ethnicity, lower educational attainment, not working, poor insurance, and predominantly lower SES), n = 268, 36.7% (class 1); and 2) low risk (White, employed with good insurance, and higher education and SES), n = 462, 63.3% (class 2). For both 3-month and 1-year outcomes, the high-risk group (class 1) had decreased odds (all p < 0.05) of attaining an MCID score in disability, neck/arm pain, and health-related quality of life. Being in the low-risk group (class 2) resulted in an increased odds of attaining an MCID score in disability, neck/arm pain, and health-related quality of life. Neither group had increased or decreased odds of being satisfied with surgery.Conclusions
Although 2 groups underwent similar surgical approaches, the social phenotype involving non-White race/ethnicity, poor insurance, lower SES, and poor employment did not meet MCIDs for a variety of outcome measures. This finding should prompt surgeons to proactively incorporate socially conscience care pathways within healthcare systems, as well as to optimize community-based resources to improve outcomes and personalize care for populations at social risk.