Health-Related Social Needs and Cardiovascular Disease

To examine the relationship between health-related social needs, specifically food insecurity, housing instability, and transportation barriers, interventions to address those needs, and cardiovascular health outcomes.

Food insecurity and housing instability are associated with many adverse cardiovascular disease outcomes, including greater prevalence and incidence, worse disease management, and greater risk of complications. Transportation barriers are plausibly linked to worse outcomes, but relatively understudied. Food is medicine interventions, which address food insecurity and help overcome barriers to healthy eating, have shown important benefits for blood pressure and heart failure in large-scale randomized clinical trials. Few interventions have evaluated the impacts on cardiovascular outcomes of addressing housing instability or transportation barriers. Health-related social needs clearly contribute to worse cardiovascular health. Several recent trials show promising benefits from addressing food insecurity. There is not yet enough evidence to draw conclusions about the cardiovascular health impacts of addressing housing instability and transportation barriers.