When Families Do Not Request Help: Assessing a Social Determinants of Health Screening Tool in Practice

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Social Determinants of Health
• Healthcare Systems

Background:

• Social determinants of health (SDOH) screening is increasingly used in pediatric care.
• Understanding how families engage with SDOH resources is crucial for effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze pediatric social needs disclosures.
• To identify which social needs were most associated with requests for resource connections.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 39,251 outpatient pediatric encounters (ages 0-18) from October 2018 to March 2020.
• Assessed the percentage of encounters with indicated social needs and resource connection requests.
• Employed multivariable logistic regression to determine associations between specific needs and resource requests.

Main Results:

• Only 8% of encounters indicated a social need, and 2% resulted in a resource connection request.
• Among families with needs, housing (OR 3.49), employment (OR 3.15), food (OR 1.89), and transportation (OR 1.82) needs showed significant associations with resource requests.
• A low overall rate of resource connection requests suggests a gap in addressing identified social needs.

Conclusions:

• Pediatric families infrequently requested assistance for identified social needs.
• Further research is needed to understand family preferences for assistance and improve SDOH screening system development.
• Identifying key needs associated with requests can help tailor resource connection strategies.